Advocating Aesop
by kyokichii
Summary: AU yk:Yuki had always been a normal kind of guy; always the friend, never date... until one night he saves an orangehaired boy from his old family and his luck starts changing...as though by magic. And there seems to be something strange about his new cat
1. Storybook Symmetry

**Really long AN:** A sort of twisted fairytail. Spelling intentional. =]

I was reading about a certain _Aesop Fable_ the other day involving a cat that caught my attention. I figured I could twist a lot of stuff for interesting furuba parallels, and tada!

While this story has a much greater impact with background knowledge of Fruits Basket, it's not necessary to have watched/read the series to understand what's going on. Thus is the beauty of an **AU fic**. Yay. I don't want to be all-assuming and suggest that my idea's completely original and never been done before, but I haven't wandered across any with this particular plot line yet, so… let me know if you happen to find any others so I can read them too. I love comparing fictions!

There is no actual 'Zodiac' in the furuba sense in this fic, but there are other mythical aspects intertwined here that will be a huge part of this fic, so if you don't like that, I'd advise you to step out now. I've never been one for crappy vampire/werewolf/fairy/demon type stories, so don't expect to see any of that. I haven't created any All-powerful!creatures or created any on my own for this fic, and any mythical fairytale-like things you see will be from other country's folklore and straight out of _Aesop Fables_.

I'd advise anyone who's interested to check out any _French myths_, specifically involving _cats_... but the japanese ones hold some truth as well.

For all of you that opened this hoping it was a new chapter (finally) of Teaching Patience, I'm sorry.

I'm such a bad person! _ My laptop is currently… I believe 'fried' would be the perfect word for it… and my nearly completed chapter 10 of Teaching Patience was on there. I do NOT really want to have to write the whole thing up again. Ugh. That's what I get for not writing it all out first. From now on I'm e-mailing these to myself every 500 words. That'll teach me.

_I haven't given up Teaching Patience_ – not by a long shot – but until I manage to get my laptop issue sorted out (within the next week or two hopefully), I thought I'd get started on something else I've been wanting to do. It's a completely different category, but still entertaining, I hope. Enjoy.

* * *

Prologue:

Storybook Symmetry

* * *

"The world was on the brink of full-out war. One wrong move on the part of either superpower and the world as we – they – knew it would've been over."

Silence, blank stares, and more than a few eyes closed altogether. A black-haired boy in the back subtly attempted to check the time on his overly expensive iPhone that had probably taken only half of the spoiled teen's weekly allowance.

Well, that was one question answered. The teacher wasn't blind or naïve; she was just too lazy to address the cellphone problem.

"Thank you, Mr. Sohma," Ms. Stevens drawled from her place behind her desk, slack-clad legs draped over the cluttered surface like discarded laundry. "Now that we've gone over the _thrilling _Cuban Missile Crisis, let's hear –" a quick glance at the clock "- never mind. Just… chat for the next five minutes." A paperback book – A Teacher's Guide to Stress Management – went up to her reclining face to rest over her eyes. Upside down. "Don't break anything."

The magic words being said, the class seemed to come alive; students began pulling up chairs to sit in small groups about the room. Cliques abounded. It was primary school all over again. The aforementioned 'Mr. Sohma' slumped into his seat with a small exhale, finally letting his shoulders relax out of the tense grip public speaking always instilled in him. He could know his speech forward and back, but put him in front of a crowd and enthusiasm would disappear – he lectured like an overworked college professor.

"I think you did very well on your report, Sohma-senpai." The teen turned towards the speaker and smiled exhaustedly back at her beaming face. Tohru was always a sight for sore eyes, and she always helped to put a bad mood into better perspective.

"Thank you for the support, Miss Honda, but diction's always been a large percentage of the report grades, and when public speaking I can't help but fall a little… flat…"

As expected, the girl's countenance changed to worried in a flash, Asian heritage showing through in the squinting of frantic eyes. "Oh, no!" she denied, the lavender ribbons in her hair tossing back and forth, "You sounded great! I couldn't even remember the dates for mine. I'm sure Stevens-sensei will give you a very good grade."

"I'm sure you did fine." She was always worrying over everyone else. Sometimes he wanted to just shake her and tell her to take care of herself for once, but that wasn't his place. Besides, shaking people was generally regarded as rude, and if Yuki was anything it was eternally polite.

They were one of the last to leave the classroom when the day bell finally did ring five minutes later, and as Yuki was placing the last of his schoolbooks into his bag, a group of freshman and sophomore girls skittered into the doorway, faces aflame and several of them anxiously smoothing their pleated uniform skirts. Tohru's fanclub had finally found her, it seemed.

"Miss Honda!" Their leader stepped out, decked out in pink and Hello Kitty as though the accessories would make her as Japanese as her idol. "We would like to request to accompany you to the movies! Please let us!"

Tohru glanced between her fans and her friend for a moment, not wanting to upset either, before Yuki patted her on the shoulder, best smile glued in place. "It's alright, Miss Honda. Have fun with your friends. I'll see you when you get home."

"Um – hai!"

Many of the girls looked uncertain whether to be upset at the reminder that their idol was currently taking up residence with the other teen and not them, or to be pleased at the acquiescence, but all was settled with a smile from Tohru that had them squealing and dragging the older girl out the door by the hand. Yuki found himself waving sadly at her retreating back, and sighed again, shouldering his bag and following behind the gossiping girls at a distance.

It wasn't that he couldn't understand why the girls doted on Tohru Honda – he understood all too well. She was kind – overly so – and a great friend. Too great a friend. No one deserved that kind of caring devotion and no one could return it to the same degree. She would sooner chop off her own hand than kill a fly, and she was faithful to a fault. And she was so cute…

But that was going down a road that was torn down, closed off, and detoured to Friendship Street for the foreseeable future.

And while Tohru Honda was the epitome of popular teenage girl, Yuki Sohma was just an average guy with a socializing problem. Besides occasionally being teased and called, 'Prince Yuki', for his perfect grades, there was nothing extraordinarily special about him, and he knew it well. He didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell. Even with the icy name irony.

He joined the crowd along the three flights of stairs leading out of the large brick building and separated somewhere between the front doors and towering rot-iron gate as he wandered off to stand under the pink-tinted shade of one of the school's many cherry blossom trees. Or 'sakura' trees, if you were listening to Tohru. Having only moved to the states two years ago, most sentences were peppered with ethnic phrasing, and like a trend, Tohru's word spread until most of the school's female population would refer to something as 'kawaii' just as easily as they could say 'cute'.

A heavy hand descended onto his shoulder, jerking him back to reality. Hatsuharu.

"Do I need to walk you home again?" Yuki sighed exasperatedly, stepping out from under the jewelry-encrusted hand. Today's outfit on the taller boy was all black despite the dress code (big surprise there) with the multitude of silver chains and spikes that had teenage girls drooling about his bad boy image. That was until they saw his 'bike' at least.

"Yeah. Momiji had to see the doctor for his checkup." He ran a hand through his hair, grumbling when the rings got caught in black and white strands. Haru could swear his tongue off that the separated black and white of his hair was completely natural, and he'd even managed to convince the principal somehow, but Yuki had always been skeptical. Then again, it _had_ been that way ever since Yuki's aunt had adopted the boy at age seven. Maybe it was a genetic anomaly from his real parents or something.

Large gray eyes were waiting patiently, and Yuki found himself agreeing despite his earlier annoyance. The younger teen had the directional sense of a barnyard animal, and coupled with his black and white hair, it was easy to see why much of the family referred to him as 'the cow'. It was merely coincidence that Haru was born on the year of the Ox.

The walk to the Sohma main house wasn't an overly long one – only about two miles or so – but as with everything else the cow did, his ambling pace made any trip considerably longer. He stopped them at nearly every other shop along the way, claiming each time that there was something he had to pick up for Momiji, or Risa, or Hiro. Yuki imagined choking his younger cousin as he left the third store, still no bags in hand.

"I forgot what I needed to get," Haru admitted easily, thumbs tucking themselves into the front pocket of his black leather jeans.

The pair stepped back onto the narrowing sidewalk, Yuki hastened the pace in hopes that the taller boy would start moving faster as well, lest he be left behind. "Fine. Just…" How to put this politely? "Can you write them on a list or something, and then pick them up tomorrow? I've got to get home to help Shigure with dinner."

Haru glanced at Yuki with his usual blank expression, but the corner of his lip curled up in curiosity; Yuki was forced to give up his faster pace as he gained more and more distance on his cousin. "Isn't that usually Tohru's job?"

"She's spending the evening with her friends at the theaters. It's just us tonight."

"You guys sound pretty useless without her… Seems like she's a Sohma already."

His heart beat rapidly in his chest, and Yuki had to force down the lump in his throat before turning towards a slightly smirking Haru. "What do you mean, _already_?"

A blank look came over the other boy and he peered up to the graying sky, fingers lacing behind his head. "It's nothing. It's just obvious that you like her, I mean." He glanced in Yuki's direction with warm gray eyes. "You're always staring at her. And you live together already, so what's the big deal? Ask the girl out already."

"No, I couldn't—I mean, it's not like that," Yuki stuttered, staring at the darkening sky as well to ignore the heat spreading to his cheeks.

"Then what is it like?"

"We're just friends." How true that was. "We see each other all the time, at school and at home, so it's completely natural for me to have some sort of affection for her. It's not—we could never be anything more."

"Never know until you try."

Gravel road gave way to a slate drive, and as they turned the last corner through the trees, a low sprawling building rose before them. The Sohma main house was designed in the same manner as the traditional Japanese temples – surrounded by luscious gardens and angled jade roofs – but with a second floor to house its many occupants. Several generations ago, the Sohma family had come to America from Japan, and while interracial marriage had done its part to produce purely American-looking offspring, tradition was still the underlying core of the whole clan. Everyone marrying in had to take the Sohma name, regardless of gender, and all children were given Japanese names despite the ethnicities of their parents.

Yuki knew his name meant snow, and he supposed it was fitting with the complete pallor of his skin.

Haru waved him off at the tori (main gate), and Yuki began the trek home, faster now that the younger boy wasn't holding him back. He almost felt guilty for snapping at his cousin earlier, but he hadn't been lying when he told Haru that he really _did_ need to get home soon. His uncle (or at least that's what he assumed Shigure was – the Sohma family was so large due to the name requirement that it was difficult to determine the relationship between you and someone else) was hopeless when it came to scrounging for some food on his own, and the last time he had tried to cook something the fire department had threatened to call the police to confiscate their oven. Sure, Yuki was only marginally better (at least he couldn't catch spaghetti on fire, or so he hoped), but if he didn't get to the house before Shigure realized Tohru wouldn't be there to cook dinner, it'd be order-out curry for dinner.

And Yuki _hated _curry.

As he was walking back towards Shigure's the shorter way, a squirrel chattered away in up in the branches of one of the numerous white birch trees that surrounded the main house like sentinels. When he was young he used to be afraid of the forest –unused to how the thin white plants had appeared against the quickly darkening night, hauntingly like ghosts – and he would be scolded by Shigure when the older man finally arrived to pick him up by car. Every black stripe or knot against the white wood was a leering mouth, staring eyes, and he couldn't even count the number of times he had gotten hopelessly lost amongst the endless maze of hypnotic black and white. He had grown a lot since those days though, and matured past such foolish notions.

That didn't mean that he couldn't wait to get through the woods before dark, though.

How very reminiscent of Little Red Riding Hood. Here he was, stumbling his way through the dark and scary forest to get to Uncle Shigure's house to make dinner. If only his school blazer was red and there actually were wolves in the surrounding woods.

'_I should've brought a warmer jacket_,' he thought to himself, tugging the school-issued thin blazer tighter around his chest. '_A flashlight too_.' Already the sky was rapidly turning black through the gaps in the dying tree branches, charcoal gray clouds swirling ominously through the blackness, threatening rain.

Sooner than he had thought, he finally escaped the cold silence of the birch forest, only to have it replaced by the cold silence of an emptying city, where occupants were huddling in their coats against the cold, rushing to get home to warm up by cozy fires and hot cups of cocoa. The forest path opened up near the slummier part of town, and if it weren't for the convenience of the quicker path through the woods, Yuki probably would never have ventured this way alone. In spite of the faint sun they had gotten earlier, the sidewalks all looked damp, as though this area alone had experienced the rain. Trash and candy wrappers, beer bottles, newspaper ads littered the clogged drains. A rundown building across the cracked street had some kind of blue graffiti referencing a gang across the faded, green-painted steel door. Someone's leftover fish dinner rotted in an overflowing steel garbage can, a scene Yuki had previously thought only belonged in movies. He could almost _smell_ the despair.

Carefully, he weeded his way through the unused side streets towards the residential side of town, cautious of molding vans that could potentially hold serial killers or dark alleys that could house gang fights against the helpless student. He kept under the flickering and yellowing streetlights because even though it would only advertise his location, he couldn't help but want to stay where he could see just what he was walking on at all times.

One never did know in neighborhoods like this.

Suddenly, a shout rang out a ways up the street, down a dark alley, causing Yuki to jump in spite of himself. Another one quickly followed, accompanied by the tinny sound of a metal garbage can falling over and the low chuckling of a gang of men that were probably picking on someone much smaller than themselves.

Yuki froze in his place under the streetlamp, unsure whether to go find a payphone and call for help, or to walk on quietly and pretend he didn't notice the possible mugging occurring yards from him. Actually doing anything proactive was out of the question. He may have had a few years of karate experience when he was younger, but he had gotten bored (like most children do) around green belt and quit, moving on instead to painting (which he had kept up for just about the same amount of time). Besides, by the raucous laughter coming from the alley under the burnt-out streetlight, there were definitely more than just a few men involved, and he knew he didn't stand a chance.

A quick glance around proved that he wouldn't find a payphone anywhere near this grime-encrusted hellhole, either. It may have been against his morals to allow someone to get hurt, but with nothing else he could do, he was forced to admit defeat.

Each guilty step brought him closer to alley, and now he didn't even try to find solace in the dim lighting along the sidewalk. He heard a few pained whimpers and his imagination supplied an image of a young girl being cornered by three huge men, leering smirks across their hideous faces. Another step, and it was an old man, feeble with age and moaning as he was knocked to the ground for his wallet. One more and it was poor Momiji…

He was right beside the opening to the alley now, and he told himself not to look. Begged his head not to turn, pleaded his eyes not to see, but as these situations always go, his body wouldn't listen to him.

There were indeed three huge young men, grotesque smirks stretched across their ugly mugs, but it wasn't a little girl they were cornering. It wasn't an old man they were beating down. Momiji wasn't in this alley.

Being kicked in the chest, back and stomach by the three men was a boy – a teen – with the brightest hair he had ever seen. The teen was curled up in a ball, only the mop of flaming orange hair proving where his head was as the larger teens threw bruising kicks at the quivering and mud-splashed torso. An arm was thrown out the side, fingers slipping as nails clawed at the ground for control.

"_What do you want, pretty boy_?"

Suddenly, Yuki realized that the men had stopped their assault, and the largest of the three had a sausage-like finger pointed his direction. Absently he glanced down at himself, crazily imagining he would see a big red target painted to the front of his blue school blazer. There wasn't, but he could see the buttonholes perfectly, and that was when he realized that somewhere during the attack his body had stepped forward without permission from his brain, right into the light from the lamp above his head, and that it might as well have been a big red target.

Their assumed leader took another menacing step in his direction, and Yuki was jolted out of his rambling thoughts, realizing that the question wasn't as rhetorical as he had originally thought. He swallowed roughly through the knot his vocal chords had twisted themselves into. It might have been an odd time to think of it, but he suddenly had the intense urge for a cold glass of some kind of juice. Maybe apple?

"Methinks he wants to learn a lesson too, eh Joey?" Voice like wind whooshing through a tunnel, tightening of muscles that looked more like the bulldozer that _made _the tunnel. 'Joey' sneered back, the crumpled figure of the orange-headed kid apparently forgotten in the lure of fresh meat.

_Methinks_? Did anyone even say that anymore? Apparently...

"Now, now... let's not be hasty..." his voice finally choked out, his body stepping back, again of its own accord. "I–I didn't do anything to you. I can just keep on my way and pretend I never saw anything..." Mentally, he was screaming obscentities at himself for offering silence, but as it stood, there were no other real options available. Unless...

Unbeknownst to the three thugs, their victim shakily pushed himself to his elbows, then knees. He didn't look well, and in all likelihood wouldn't be any real help in a fight, but if this was played out right, they might just both make it out of here in one piece.

"Now, we don't like people who meddle in family affairs," the one called Joey sneered. Now that Yuki was looking for it, it was obvious that all three were in some way related – if not by the identical beady eyes than by their massive size – but then how could the skinny orange-haired teen possibly be related to such giants? "Although, if the little freak hadn't have run away, none of this would've been necessary."

"You would've tried to run away too, if you were being treated the way I was!" All three of the bullies turned towards the slighter teen, who was shakily propping himself up against the side of a wayward dumpster, breathing hard through gritted teeth that glinted despite the scattered shadows negated only by Yuki's streetlight and the red-tinted light coming from a window in the adjacent building right above their heads [that Yuki hadn't even noticed up until now]. It seemed that the smallest – and so far the quietest – of the bully brothers finally noticed their possible audience too, for he immediately turned and made several 'shh' gestures to his bigger brothers that were promptly ignored.

But the oldest didn't have nearly as much sense and his grating barking only became steadily louder. "And why the hell would we treat you like anything but the filthy animal you are? It's not like you ever did anything _good _for us. You're completely useless! You can't even _run away _right!"

Before he could stop himself, words were already tumbling out of Yuki's lips. "If you seem to hate him so much, why bother chasing him down?"

"That's a good question," the largest one snarled, glaring one last time at the injured redhead before nodding his head towards the road – towards Yuki. Yuki felt his muscles tense up as the larger men grew closer, but the talker of the group had on a joking sneer, as though he knew something the other didn't. And he probably did. One didn't usually wear that look for no reason. "You seem to care an awful lot 'bout that freak's welfare. Tell you what, _you _can be that shithead's keeper from now on. Have fun."

And then they were gone, echoes of guffawing laughter carrying back to the two frozen in the alleyway, unsure of what to do next.

A shuffle behind him reminded Yuki that he was not alone. He turned towards the boy he had just unwittingly saved, and froze, caught in the stare of the other male. Under the gaudy glow of the prostitute's red light, the others eyes glowed like a cat – practically all iris and the crimson of newly-shed blood. Not that he had ever actually _seen_ copious amounts of fresh blood, but horror movies could go a long way to sustain the imagination. It was terrible, but for a moment he could almost understand why the boy's brother had called him an animal. But then those eyes flickered away, back to his hand supporting him against the overflowing dumpster, and Yuki was forcibly reminded that the other teen had just been beaten up – jumped – by his own brothers. Surely he couldn't just go home now, to where those monsters were waiting for him?

Without saying a word, he toed a path through the alley filth to the boy and looped an arm around the thin waist, pulling an arm over his shoulders to steady the teen. While the other male tensed at the first contact, he relaxed some against Yuki once he realized that Yuki was actually planning on _helping _him and wasn't a vulture coming in to pick off the leftovers of a beaten prey. The least he could do was to help the shorter boy to a bench – hopefully somewhere with a light and payphone – and then maybe the boy would be able to help himself from there.

"Where do you live?"

Yuki started as the soft question puffed against his sensitive ear and almost dropped the boy leaning against him. He couldn't be serious... "I don't think–"

"You got me kicked out, so I'm staying with you."

He apparently _was _serious. There was a growl in his voice that teetered on annoyance, but was drowned out overall by utter exhaustion and slightly muffled by a body that just didn't want to hold itself up much longer. But as much as he felt for the guy – he really did – Yuki wasn't about to just invite some stranger into his family's home. "I didn't get you kicked out, I saved you! ["or at the very least stood up for you" he added in a mumble] And you were going to run away anyway."

The boy leaned against Yuki's side a little more and groaned gratefully when, a few moments later, he was able to drop down onto one of the many cheap metal benches the government had put in under the guise of 'cleaning up the city'. It was situated under another streetlight outside the park, and when his head dropped down onto the back of the park bench his hair shown like fire. Yuki couldn't help but stare. "I never could run away. Get maybe half a mile, tops. I would've just been dragged – probably kicking and screaming – back with them, but at least I'd have somewhere to stay. A roof over my head. Food when they were feeling generous. Now what? The least you could do would be to let me stay tonight." A low rumbling started in the clouds, and slowly drop by drop of rain descended to their little hideout. "It'd suck to have to sleep in a tree again."

Yuki winced. While he could empathize with the other boy for not being able to go home, at least Yuki had always had Shigure there to back him up and give him a place to stay. Really then, what harm could it be to let this kid stay just one night? Anything had to be better than a tree. "Fine," he sighed wearily, moving to stand once again, if only to get off the quickly soaked wood of the bench seat. "But only for one night, then you're gone. It isn't my house, so I can't just invite anyone I want to come live with me."

"Never said anything about _living _with you. Just take in a stray for the night, alright?" the other grumbled, pushing himself to his feet. He swayed for a moment, before allowing Yuki to loop his arm around his waist once more, scowl still permanently creasing otherwise pleasant features. They began the walk back to Shigure's house in relative silence, only broken by the little puffs of strained breath every couple yards and the steady rumble of thunder up above in the black.

They had made halfway down the wooded trail to Shigure's house before Yuki noticed that he had neglected his manners.

"I just realized– my name's Yuki. Yuki Sohma."

"Weird. I've never met anyone that only realized their name at what, sixteen?"

Yuki frowned. Couldn't this kid be polite for five minutes? No wonder his family wanted to get rid of him... "Seventeen," he corrected frostily, before realizing that he was trying to argue with an injured person. And injured person who looked much like a drowned cat in the rain. How rude of him. "No, what I _meant _was that I had forgotten to introduce myself. My name's Yu–"

"–Yuki Sohma. Got it the first time. I'm not a child, and don't need you to spell things out for me," the boy huffed, and Yuki resisted rolling his eyes.

"Then you'd know that the normal response to this situation would be to tell me your own name. You _will _be staying with me for the night, you know."

Muscles tensed along his side, and Yuki was forced to admit defeat; obviously the other teen didn't want to give away any personal information, and would need to be taken at face value. How disappointing. Puzzles were only fun if they could be solved, otherwise they were just a bunch of misshapen scraps taking up all your useful space. But he didn't focus too long on the enigma of the other boy. Through the trees a light was growing, and with a few more uneven steps, the peak of the cabin-like house could be discerned from the surrounding foliage. The porch light was on, as was the table lamp just behind the floor-to-ceiling front windows, but Yuki wasn't fooled. It was common knowledge that Shigure was careful with his house and possessions, and left both lights on at all time – whether he was home or not. Given the late hour, and the absence of the green jeep from under the tall wrap-around porch, it was safe to say that Shigure was off getting food.

_Curry_, most likely.

"It's Kyo."

Yuki didn't turn towards the smaller teen, but continued to help him along slowly, gripping tighter around his waist when he almost tripped on the gravel walkway. It could be hard to navigate on in the dark and rain if you weren't expecting it. "Just Kyo?"

Kyo pulled away jerkily, taking a few stumbling steps along the path before leaning heavily against the wet driftwood railing leading up to the massive carved-oak front door. He glared over his shaking shoulder at Yuki, although Yuki doubted much of his anger was actually directed at _him_. His family _had _just disowned him, after all. "_I don't exactly belong to the Larkson family anymore, now do I?_" Something shimmered in the corner of the crimson eyes, and he sniffed quickly, turning back toward the warm, dry house and the promise of a good night's sleep. Obviously the boy was in pain – whether it was more emotional or physical, Yuki couldn't begin to guess. But Kyo nearly tripped going up the four stairs to the door, and Yuki finally decided enough was enough.

In one swoop, he had one arm under the boy's knees, and one around his back, and – like a groom with his bride – carried him into the house.

"Ahk! Let me _down_!" he thrashed wildly against Yuki's strong hold, and would've landed on his head if it weren't for the soft suede couch he was promptly disposed of onto, just yards from the front door. By the time he could do more than sputter angrily, Yuki was already halfway up the thick cedar staircase towards the upstairs bathroom.

"It's my house – and I don't really like you – so I'm taking the first shower. Make yourself comfortable down there, and you can take one when I'm done." he called down, mumbling the part about not liking Kyo to himself – he _did _have his reputation to keep after all – although the other teen scowled anyway. Not waiting for a reply, Yuki stormed off up the stairs, not intending to get out of the shower until it was freezing cold and waiting for the redhead.

Hopefully by the time he came back down, it would've all been a dream.

* * *

The metal of the car door was slippery in the sudden downpour that seemed to come out of nowhere, and with his arms full of tonight's dinner, it was pure dumb luck that Shigure managed to both close and lock the door _and_ ascend the steps to the relatively dry front porch without spilling the three to-go boxes of 'the best curry in town' all over the gravel walk. As it were, he was sure his poor sushi side dish was unraveling amongst the noodles by now.

How Aya had convinced him to stay out this late, he would never know. The man was magic, surely.

He hopped from one foot to the other on his front porch a few times, trying desperately to situate the bags on his hip long enough to get a hand into his pocket... Where his keys apparently _weren't_. Blink. Maybe the other one?

Both pockets (and to-go bags) yielded no results, and he very nearly cried – drenched as he was, he didn't really want to have to beg his nephew to let him in, only to laugh at his disheveled and drenched state – before he actually tried to turn the doorknob out of pure desperation. The door swung open with a creak that could only result from heavy usage.

He very nearly cried again. This time for a bit happier reason.

"Oh, _Yuki-darling_, I'm _hooome_... oh." A boy about Yuki's age sat curled up in the corner of the living room couch, staring at him with a look that was part confusion, and a good deal disdain. Not at all out of the usual, considering how flamboyant and crazed Shigure could make himself sound if the whim were to strike him. Still, he usually tried to make a good first impression to all of Yuki's new friends – God knows he didn't have nearly enough of them. "You must be one of Yuki's friends."

"You could say that," he replied. His voice was passionately dispassionate – the perfect kind of accent for a teenage rebel – and exactly the kind of voice Shigure would've cast for the bad boy in his latest novel. But that was neither here nor there, and a smirk was slowly crawling across the teen's tanned face.

"I'm Shigure Sohma, but everyone calls me either Shigure, or 'gure for short. Feel free to call me whatever you like though," he teased, winking at the younger man for good measure, "just not _Baby_. I feel I'm more of a _Daddy_, myself."

The teen snorted but stood anyway, rolling the kinks out of his shoulders while the running water upstairs shut itself off. He held out his hand, which gave Shigure's a firm shake that sent jolts down his spine, and a toothy grin, revealing pearly white teeth. His contacts didn't look so much like contacts this close.

"Nice to meet you, Shigure. The name's Kyo. Kyo Sohma."

* * *

AN:

Word count: 6,313 words. Kind of a lot for a prologue, I guess...

Things are starting to get interesting... and we haven't even gotten to the actual STORYLINE, yet! Amazing, huh? I've got some real ideas forming on this one, so just wait as things get even weirder.


	2. Parable Prelude

Wow. I forgot how much fun this story was to write. Much funner than Teaching Patience, I must say. Perhaps it's the subject matter? Nonetheless, this one's quite a bit more difficult to write, for various reasons. Most of which include not having any idea where the plot's going... you can thank Terra, my lovely beta, for all the help. Really, she's fricken amazing. She's got ideas, plot twists, character development, and a mean knowledge of how to properly kick my butt at grammer. So this chapter's dedicated to her.

**Karē is a type of Japanese curry, imported in the 19th century (1800-1900) by way UK and adapted by Japanese Navy chefs. **[Wikipedia]

I only mention it because it's kind of important... and is what they're eating. Kind of.

**SECOND AN: [un-edited by Terra – just so y'all can see how horrid my regular writing is...]**

We had a crazy time updating this thang, folks. Seriously. Terra was all like, "this is sposed to be two words, this one word, this... isn't EVEN a word (_"'swively', noooo!"_)," and it was awesome. There was a point when she went Medieval [I'm going to go with that one, because I can't say "Samurai" without sounding racist] on a sentence and took nearly five minutes for me to understand her. Then again, we had an issue with subtly [lolz, suddlety] and how it apparently doesn't work for me. Not the word... but the act. No one catches any of them. -____-

I'd suggest going back and re-reading the last section of the prologue before starting. Unless you have a super memory, of course.

* * *

Chapter 1:

Parable Prelude

* * *

The hot water had held out for a good twenty minutes this time. Not a world record by anyone's standards, but a personal record – for Shigure's household, at least. Shigure had had the water heater replaced a few months back (_"it's getting old, Yuki. You gotta get on these things __**before**__ they shut down completely!"_) and had gotten a reasonable deal on the updated version. It wasn't until Yuki had used the _new and improved_ shower that night that they had found out where the price cuts came from. Apparently it saved you nearly a hundred bucks when you used ex-cons as repairmen who got their plumbing license over a month-long internet course.

Needless to say, Yuki was put in charge of coordinating repairs from then on.

Yuki stepped out of the muggy shower carefully, wrapping a new fluffy green towel around his waist in the process. A drop of watery conditioner fell from somewhere above his eyeline and landed with a light _plop_ on his chest. He wiped it away with a slight frown, momentarily considering stepping back under the spray to properly clean the area. He settled for scrubbing at the offending grayish locks with another towel, stopping only once he was sure the leave-in conditioner was thoroughly soaked in this time. Contrary to popular belief (which probably wasn't an accurate name for it, as he'd only been complimented four or five times), Yuki's hair wasn't naturally the _beautiful silken mane_ he tried to pretend it was. Shigure's words, not his.

He frowned again before leaving the bathroom, as he heard Shigure's distinct tones conversing with the quiter, rougher ones of their newest house guest. Of course, Shigure would just _have_ to get home while he was in the shower. It always seemed that whenever he tried to do something mean or rude to others – like using up all the hot water – something bad would happen to him just as fast. Yuki wasn't superstitious enough to believe in karma, but that might've had more to do with the absence of good fortune coming from his good deeds. Damn it. Whoever said karma went two ways?

He got dressed in record time – gray silk pajama pants and gray cotton t-shirt – and made sure his door was firmy shut and locked before wandering down the stairs to the suede-upholstered living room. Shigure was bent over double, grimmace plastered across his face as he attempted vainly to get one of the logs in the fireplace to catch flame. Knowing the idiotic man, he had probably plucked them from the wood pile on the side of the house. The wood pile that was most likely thoroughly soaked from the heavy rain outside.

The person of Yuki's distain – _Kyo no-last-name-anymore_ – lay sprawled out across the matching suede armchair now, bare mud-splattered feet hanging limply in the air beyond the fat arm supporting his dirty jean-clad calves. His tan face was propped up by a bent arm, and crimson eyes lazily watched Shigure's attempts at being a proper host. Yuki eyed the teen's smirk with distaste.

Sure, he thought Shigure was an idiot, but that didn't mean he had to like it when others looked down on his uncle.

Shigure stood from the fireplace with a tisk, rubbing at his lower back in that perfected move that always managed to end up with Shigure relaxing while he was forced into whatever the idiot had been trying to do. "My, my," he began dramatically, peeking out of the corner of his eye to ensure that Yuki was indeed watching his pathetic display. "My back just isn't what it used to be," punctuated with a quick stretch. "Now if only I had a young and able-bodied–"

"Quit wasting words."

"Now Yuki," he pouted, "is that any way to talk to your kind and loving uncle? The one who took you in all those years ago when–"

"You just like to hear yourself talk, don't you?" Yuki stepped down off the last step, feeling slightly comforted by the plush white carpet beneath his feet. One would think that white would be the worst possible choice with Shigure around, but Tohru always did such a good job cleaning. "_Idiot_."

"You just like to interrupt me," Shigure whined, truthfully.

A movement from the corner of Yuki's eye distracted him, and he turned back to Kyo who was rolling back his shoulders a few feet away from the older man. The bones in his shoulders seemed to cave in on themselves somewhere in the motion, but after he was done, Yuki couldn't pinpoint what exactly about the stretch seemed so off to him. Maybe he was one of those people who were double-jointed. But then, he had never met someone who was double-jointed in their shoulders.

Kyo stepped up to Shigure, who was standing back and eyeing both teens. Wordlessly, Shigure handed over the half-used pack of matches, and both Sohmas watched somewhat skeptically as their houseguest kneeled on the smooth granite before the built-in fireplace. The match lit with a _swoosh_, and Kyo lowered the match to the very center of log.

The log caught fire instantly.

"Look here, Yuki!" Shigure exclaimed, as though the teen hadn't just watched everything he was about to gush about. "We have a boyscout in the house. Oh, Aya would be so _thrilled_!" He punctuated his excitement by reaching out to ruffle his hair. Kyo seemed to have been expecting it though, for he stepped away smoothly, body sliding out of the direct glow of the fire until only part of his face was visible in the crackling light. Crimson eyes caught the light like stained glass. "Yuki, why didn't you tell me you had met another Sohma?"

_Sohma_? What did that old man just...?

"Oh, forgive Yuki," the redhead interceded, waving a hand in a placating way as though Yuki had actually done something that needed to be forgiven. "He's probably just being modest. I mean," he said, tilting his head in a way that subtly showed off the ghost of the bruise Yuki was sure had been a vivid purple half an hour earlier, "it's not everyday you save someone's life."

Shigure's face lit up just as Yuki's world came to a grinding halt. This boy was actually trying to convince Yuki's uncle that he was from the same family, right in front of the one person who _knew _he was lying? What had happened to the rough around the edges kid from earlier with the gruff voice and devil-may-care attitude?

"Yuki saved your life?!" Shigure squealed, grabbing and shaking Kyo by the hands. "It's just like something out of a romance novel – _two young lovers, brought together through the heroic actions of our protagonist_ – oh, Aya will be so excited when he hears of this newest development! Although I fear for poor Tohru's feelings on the loss of his love..."

Of course he'd go into the fated romance ploy again. It had been the same when he had brought Tohru home too, except back then it hadn't been quite as embarassing. Back then Shigure hadn't been trying to proclaim his adopted nephew as _gay_.

"Listen here, you ignorant fool—"

"...but all will be well, because she will always have me here to care and protect her! Now tell me, Kyo, how'd the heroic deed play out? I _have_ to know."

"_Well_," Kyo drawled out, leaning back to sit on the arm of the soft suede couch, "I was just walking along the road..."

"At _night_? In _this weather_?!"

"I know, right?" Kyo was only encouraged by the older man's over-played enthusiasm. Yuki nearly gagged. "Anyway, I was minding my own business when these _gangsters_ came out and jumped me!"

The term, "gangster" generally implied an intelligent backing and organization. Apparently Kyo thought the more apt "hillbilly" just didn't have the same ring to it.

"Oh you _poor thing_!" It would seem Shigure agreed.

Yuki realized his mouth was hanging open (once the thin line of drool had extended to nearly his chin) and snapped it shut with a jerk. "It was just your brothers, and—"

Crimson eyes glared silently in his direction, but his tone was still the overly emotional '_damsel in distress_' tone that had Shigure hanging on his every word. "And what a _horrible cult_ it was! I tried to tell them that I didn't want anything to do with it, but they just wouldn't take no for an answer. Now I'm out of my house _and _my home," _Weren't they the same thing_? "and I've got nowhere to turn. I was just so thankful that _Yuki_ was here to save me..." _I'd like to thank the Academy..._

Yuki sighed, sinking into the chair closest to the stairs. It had been a good fight – _hardly_ – but if there was anything that could be called Shigure's weakness, it was a good cliché. _And the idea of romance, chocolate, porn..._ Still, he felt like a jealous child as the other teen was smothered by one of the smothering embraces Shigure favored when he was really more excited than usual at the prospect of writing someone's hardships into his 'novels'. From over Shigure's shoulder, those red eyes glinted as Kyo openly _smirked_ at him. Apparently Yuki wasn't the only one feeling particularly childish. The smirk was gone as quickly as it had appeared, and Kyo stepped back, every bit as sweet and unassuming as Shigure believed him to be.

"You're welcome to stay as long as you want – in fact, I _insist_."

Yuki snapped up again, the disbelief at Kyo's audacity being enough to distract him from seeing his plan until just then. The heavy armchair made a loud creaking sound as the three legs and the phonebook (acting as a makeshift fourth leg) slid backward a couple inches from the force of his outburst. "This isn't a hotel, idiot," he snapped. "With Miss Honda here, we don't have any more extra rooms. Where do you expect to put him – on the roof?"

Kyo stared at him blankly. "It's _raining_."

_Was_ raining. Past tense. Yuki saw no issue with kicking him out _now_.

Shigure continued uninhibited. "He can stay in your room, Yuki! But be good up there, boys. Don't do anything _I _wouldn't do." _Research of the academic kind? Be respectable citizens? _"I've just _got_ to tell Aya! I– oh..." The older man debated pathetically between the cooling take-out bags drooping off the back of the couch and the hallway (where, like in a seventies sitcom, their only phone – on a _cord_, even! – sat beside a note pad and pen on a narrow table), looking forlornly first at one, then at the other.

When it became obvious that he wouldn't be able to make the decision by himself – about four head-turning cycles in – Yuki groaned, having to play the adult as usual. "Food first, _then _you can call the cretin. The curry's getting cold." Not that that was a bad thing, necessarily. Curry was disgusting.

Shigure pouted, but gingerly picked up the corner of the bag not soaked in the spilled blood of some kind of orange sauce, and shuffled through the white-stucco archway into the kitchen. He capsized the bag over the plate that Yuki was holding out with disdain. "You shouldn't speak so ill of Ayame, Yuki. Brothers are supposed to—"

"He's not my brother – he just likes to pretend he is." The clink of the durable plastic plate on the fake marble countertop was nearly as sharp as his words and acknowledged by the look of saddened surrender on his uncle's face.

"At least he cares enough to pretend," the older man sighed, truthfully.

Ayame was a lot of things – obnoxious, loud-mouthed, flamboyantly gay – but he was incontestably the most passionate person Yuki had ever met. And even though he hated the fact that it was _he himself_ the other man was obsessing about, he had to give the man credit for trying.

Even _if_ that trying were usually unsuccessful attempts to dress Yuki up like various anime characters he hadn't thought of since his manga days back in middle school.

Honestly, _Inuyasha_? He was unusual enough with the way his dirty brown hair would appear a mauve in certain lighting – but add a flowing white wig and dog ears? Recipe for disaster_._

"Whatever," Yuki countered dully, no longer in any mood to fight Shigure on the matter. Shigure would just win, anyway. "I'll stop calling him a moron when he stops acting like one."

His uncle grinned at him. "You mean, _cretin_."

"What—"

"Is that Karē?"

The two true Sohmas jumped and turned towards the entryway. Kyo's upper half was peering into the archway, feet firmly planted around the corner and out of sight. The untrimmed fingernails on his visible hand drummed a nervous pattern against the textured white surface of the doorway. The sight reminded Yuki immediately of a child shy in entering someone else's home, but the effect was ruined by his height (which was still a good couple inches shorter than himself) and the unnaturally crimson eyes that he was beginning to doubt was created with contacts.

"Karē... " Shigure pondered over the unusual term for a moment, before clapping his hands together with a wide grin. "Oh! Yes, karē. This is the Indian version though, just warning you. Might find some weird ingredients in this one."

Yuki groaned. Curry was bad enough as it was plain. He couldn't understand people like his uncle – and Kyo now, it seemed – who could actually like the stuff, let alone be able to tell what kind it was by sight alone. He glanced down to the dreaded plate, only to discover that it had been safely tucked into the microwave quite some time ago.

Smell alone, then. That's dedication. _Yuck_.

The strange teen hesitated at the doorway still, and Yuki scowled, feeling irrational frustration fill him. "What, do you not _like_ this kind of curry or something?" He didn't really understand why he was giving the other teen such a hard time – _he_ didn't even like curry, himself – but the way the other teen had practically invited himself into their home was making his skin crawl and temper rise against his will.

Kyo jumped slightly at the caustic remark, but was saved from answering as Shigure draped an arm over his shoulder and pulled him into the cheery yellow-walled kitchen. "Ignore Yuki, Kyo. He tends to get cranky when he's hungry." The older man paused, an amused look passing over his face. "When you borrow his lotion, too. But I _did_ buy him a new bottle, so I don't know why he's still so angry about it..."

"You bought me _lubricant_," the teen hissed back. Then he seemed to remember they had (rather unwelcome, in his case) company, and blushed twenty shades of red. "And besides, it was aftershave, not lotion."

"I always _did _wonder how you'd been able to—"

"_Oh_!"

All three males – one full grown everywhere but mind – turned toward the source of the outburst. Tohru hovered awkwardly in the doorway to the kitchen, two translucent yellow plastic bags clutched tight to her chest as she spotted the light on in the microwave behind them. As if on cue, the electronic _ding_ of a dinner well-nuked sounded, and the unnatural off-white glow went out. Her wide blue eyes took in the newcomer, and she nearly dropped the bags as she hastily bowed to the boy who had moved to half-sit on the spindly metal arm of one of the swiveling kitchen stools.

"_Ano_... ko– hello, my name is Tohru Honda. I..." she glanced down at her bags again, before feverishly pulling out what seemed to be the ingredients to another one of her amazing traditional Japanese dishes. "I'm so sorry that I'm back so late! I can cook dinner now if you'd like – I don't want Sohma-senpai to have to eat food he doesn't like!"

"No– It's fine, Miss Honda," Yuki found himself denying immediately – an effect of having Tohru so near to him. He hardly noted Shigure wandering off to the hall telephone to make that call to Ayame that he had been whining about. "Shigure brought home curry, yes, but a little change is good every once in a while."

"Oh no!" she lamented, delicate hands flying up before her mouth as her eyes began glistening suspiciously. "Of course you both would get tired of Japanese food if I made it so often—_stupid, stupid, stupid_!"

"Miss Honda—"

"Oi!" Kyo interrupted with a scowl, sharp tones easily slicing through the rough waters of Tohru's distress like a deadly shark. "If Yuki here says it's fine, _it's fine_, okay?"

_'So **now** he's on my side?'_ Yuki frowned at the abrupt change of attitude – one that he'd bet was a product of the only adult being out of the room – and pulled the steaming plate out of the microwave with a napkin buffering the heat from each side. A placemat slid under the plate half a second before it touched the counter, and he sent Tohru a grateful smile. She probably would've returned it if she hadn't had still been overly concerned with what her boys would eat for dinner.

The "_her" boys_ part being a stipulation only found lurking in Yuki's mind, of course.

Yuki took down three smaller plates from an overhead cabinet and set them down next to the steaming pile of chicken guts (disguised as curry). Crimson eyes tracked his steps across the room lazily. He sighed heavily, returning to the cupboard for yet another plate. Of course they couldn't be stuck with the city anorexic at their house – by the way the roughed-up teen was eyeing the spicy meat, Shigure would likely have quite the fight over the last piece of curry. With any luck, he'd eat enough that the old man would kick him out all the sooner. But that was unlikely, and he knew it. Tohru would have more food cooked up before either of them could say 'please'.

And apparently the girl had the same thought – or at least a more sweet and innocent version – because she pulled out a frying pan from beside the sink and deposited a generous portion of soba noodles in the center. She turned to Yuki, nervously tucking a strand of flyaway hair behind her ear. "I'll just make a little extra, just in case. We can't have you starving – maybe I should make some rice too? Is there anything else you would like, Sohma-senpai?"

_'Besides you?'_

"I think this should be plenty, thank you."

Shigure breezed back in through the doorway, fiddling with a torn-off sheet of memo paper. As Yuki watched, the square was folded into a triangle, then a diamond, then the older man's words became significant enough distraction to ignore the early steps of some origami process. "Well, I just called Aya," as though they didn't know, "and he's very happy for you, Yuki. You'll have to take Kyo to meet him at his shop after school tomorrow – he's already getting started on an outfit for him!"

If Kyo's outfit turned out to be any manlier than the one Ayame had made for _him_, he would stuff it down the redhead's throat. Horrendous lace and all.

"How long do you intend for him to hang around?" (Glance behind, and Kyo was straightening a wayward edge of Shigure's discarded origami moose. _Elephant? Rock? _Either way – no hear, no foul.)

Shigure ignored him and moved to his side to dredge a partially squashed clear plastic container from out of the debris of the take-out bags. The lid eventually gave way with a _schnnk_ and bits of sticky rice shrapnel landed with little plops across the man's forearms. Yuki shot him a look (_can't even open a container without making a mess_) that Shigure returned with a wry grin of his own, piece of rice on his nose and all.

"It doesn't seem like he has anywhere else to go, does it? Besides, something tells me that there's more to this Kyo than meets the eye." Occasionally his uncle could form coherent thought – sometimes even reasonably accurate inferences from the briefest of meetings. These times were celebrated, for they came few and far between. "It can't hurt to keep the kid for a week or so. We kept Tohru, afterall..."

Emotional blackmail. Dirty old man...

"Kyo," Shigure called gaily to the redhead (who had progressed to a full sprawl in the stool, legs slung over the arm), "why don't you go ahead and take a shower while we get dinner ready – maybe a bath? Yuki..." ...continued to determinedly wipe up the fallen rice soldiers with a damp paper towel.

"I can find the bathroom on my own."

"Up the stairs and it's the second-to-last door on the right. Towels in the closet across the hall."

With a 'yeah, thanks' thrown over his shoulder he was gone, and the three beings in the kitchen paused unconsciously for the _click_ of the bathroom door.

"Um... Shigure-san? Who was that boy...?"

"That's Kyo; he's a new friend of Yuki's. _Isn't that right?_" Home invader would be a more apt title, but he didn't want to give Tohru the wrong (_right!_) impression. He nodded resignedly and that seemed to be enough for the girl. She was always so trusting. That was probably why he couldn't help but feel so protective over her.

Together they made short work of the last-minute dinner preparations. Dinner at the misfit Sohma household was typically a quick and efficient affair – Tohru cooking, everyone eating, the males at least dumping the scraps before leaving her to the dishes – but they found themselves unconsciously slowing in each task the delay the eating part as long as possible. When the water finally shut off upstairs (_ten minutes of cold shower, sucker!_), Yuki followed his uncle's unspoken directive to assist the redhead by way of a nod in the general '_up that-a way_' direction.

The last thing he saw as he glanced over his shoulder out of the kitchen was the folded square of paper Kyo had adopted from Shigure. It was folded in the shape of a cat's head.

* * *

Somehow, Shigure didn't think the two boys got along very well.

They were both freshly showered (Kyo more freshly than Yuki, of course) and were being offered not only amazingly delicious curry but Tohru's home-cooking as well. And yet, both were throwing near-identical scowls at each other, which was causing his sweet-flower to fret in her seat by his side. He didn't mind at all that she was sitting next to him. Usually she would sit next to his nephew, but she suggested warmly that the two friends should be able to sit next to eachother. What a caring and thoughtful dainty-heart.

The girl glanced nervously between Yuki and Kyo, who were both so focused on not blinking that they remained oblivious to the attention they were attracting. While Yuki's eyes were showing the warning signs of shininess in the corners, Kyo's blank glare-stare hybrid was unyielding. Given, it was only Tohru and himself (who Yuki ignored for the most part anyway) watching, but it was unlike his usually finicky nephew to not have some semblance of awareness of his surroundings at all times.

He _had_ been teasing when he had proclaimed the two boys as potential lovers – with the way Yuki fawned over the fragile Tohru, he'd be blind to not realize his obvious feelings for the girl. But the more he watched their interactions, the more he reconsidered his initial theory. Both were handsome enough, were even complements of eachother's completely opposing versions of beauty. He'd be biased in favor of his nephew's icy countenance, of course, but there was the lingering suspicion that a clandestine charm hid behind the shell of the boy in need of a hot meal and a good nights' sleep. _They'd make a good pair... _supposing of course that they weren't _actually_ related. Hardly any _Sohma_ really was.

Besides, they already couldn't take their eyes from the other's.

"Itadakimasu!" Tohru passed the delicious plate of curry across the table to Yuki, breaking the impromptu staring contest. None too soon, if Yuki's suddenly watering eyes had anything to say about it. The teen scowled at the plate ("_Waa- what'd the curry ever do to __**you**__, Yuki?_") before handing it off wordlessly to the crimson-eyed boy lounging cross-legged in the chair beside him. The sleeve of the thin red sweatshirt – which had been pulled from the color-coordinated neatness of Yuki's closet and therefore was purchased with Yuki's measurements in mind – flopped over the thin tanned fingers as he reached out to take the plate. He pushed it up his arm with a faint growl, for probably the tenth time.

This would ordinarily be the part where Shigure burst in with some vaguely perverted remark about how cute the boy looked in Yuki's clothes, _which he was definitely thinking_, but he was just as distracted by the unnerving fact that his curry dish had halted in its trip around the table. There it sat, getting cold as Kyo struggled with the clothes Yuki had grudgingly offered up after the slightly shorter teen's shower.

The curry had already been reheated once. Hell be damned if he'd let it enter the microwave once again.

"_Kyo_," he pressed, concern for his dish making the statement sharply intent, "let me see your arms. I'm sure I can help."

The shorter teen eyed him distrustfully for a moment, before holding out the too-long sleeves like a scolded schoolchild. He gathered the edges of the sweatshirt easily in his larger hands, rolling the material upwards over itself until the rather bulky new sleeve-end rested heavy against the boy's wrists. With the sleeves no longer covering all but the skinny fingertips, he noticed for the first time just how thin the teen before him was., how his collarbone stood sharp from where the neckline swooped to the base of his shoulder, and how his cheekbones and jaw white against the tanner skin of his face.

_What hell had he been through up until now?_

Perhaps Kyo had heard his thoughts, or maybe he was becoming uncomfortable under the older man's worrying gaze, because he jerked his wrists out of the man's flax grip, something dark red and white jingled in the corners of his vision. Kyo held his arms close to his chest as though he thought Shigure would try to grab them again. From their new position, the small beaded bracelet was clearly visible. It seemed a rather feminine thing for a boy to be wearing, and yet, it somehow suited him.

Besides, Shigure (with his best friend being Ayame) was probably the last person to try to tell somebody what they should or should not wear.

"Go ahead. The curry won't bite you... although you'll definitely bite _it_."

Across the table, Yuki snorted disbelievingly at the crude joke; he was already reaching for Tohru's udon noodles. However crude though, the joke did its part to lessen the stress in the thin shoulders, and Kyo helped himself to a good-sized serving of the chicken curry. He kept up the polite facade long enough to pass the plate halfway to Shigures seat at the table. And that was all the boy had time for – because he was turning his attention elsewhere, already scooping up hunks of chicken and vegetable and rice with an urgency that left Shigure a bit unsettled.

'_This_,' Shigure thought, disquieted, '_is the ways strays act when presented with a well-needed dish of milk_.'

But this wasn't an animal that the animal-loving Tohru had snuck home. This was a human being – albeit one that Yuki had snuck home – and was obviously in need of their help. For a moment he was proud of his nephew's compassionate spirit.

"Quit eating like an animal. It's disgusting." But of course, he had to go and ruin it with his usual cynical nature.

"Who're you calling an animal, you arrogant prick?!" Apparently, having found a place to stay and a plate of warm food, Kyo was content to drop the innocent act around him finally. He hadn't bought the sweet and pathetic boy act when they had first been introduced, and he found that he liked this spunky version quite a bit more.

"A word like 'arrogant', huh? Awfully big word for someone with manners befitting a barnyard."

The chair screeched back, and Shigure winced at the damage being done to his precious dining room. "_Why you_—!"

"Just shut up and eat, idiot."

And to probably everyone's surprise, Kyo's mouth clicked shut with a scowl, murderous intent tinted crimson eyes with a dangerous light. But Yuki got what he'd intended for – Kyo didn't speak for the rest of dinner, too focused on his food to pay any other attention.

* * *

"I don't know what your intentions are, but I'm on to you."

The steadily annoying tapping of the bare foot against the windowframe ceased for a moment in thought. "You would think that to be '_on to someone_' you'd need to know something about them."

Settling both hands composedly in his lap – fingers determinedly straight to prevent them from unconsciously twitching – Yuki made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat and glanced away from the boy perched on the open windowsill to the cracking white paint of a ceiling that hadn't seen new paint in nearly ten years. If only the house itself would age as gracefully as its owner, they wouldn't have to worry about such nuisances. "Look – I said I don't know what you want from us. I get that you're _secretive_ and whatnot. Fine. I don't need, or _want_, to hear your life story. Just..." he exhaled deeply, letting his head roll back to the other teen. As much as he looked like he was moments from spitting rage again, he had his attention. That was definitely a start. "As long as you're living with us, we should try to be on better terms. Otherwise it might make Shigure suspicious."

"Hn."

It wasn't quite the heartfelt apology and birth of a new friendship that he had optimistically hoped for. Hell, he could only judge it as a term of acquiesce because teen hadn't lunged to attack him. Maybe he was being too naïve about the situation, but he couldn't see why the damned redhead needed to be so defensive about everything. It was getting old rather quick.

Kyo stiffened suddenly, and a glossy look came over his eyes as though he was hearing something that Yuki couldn't. The look was gone almost as soon as it came, and Kyo stood to a crouch, looking out into the dark and foggy forest intently.

"I'm going out for a while. Don't wait up."

"But it's going to _rain_ again!" Yuki hissed exasperatedly. But Kyo was already through the window, and was out of view by the time Yuki had lurched to his feet. He barely caught the red ghost of his sweatshirt disappearing between two pale trees before all that was left was the night, damp and cold.

He didn't wait up, and that night he dreamed of the dark, the rain, and a pair of blood red eyes watching him from the trees.

* * *

**Third Un-edited AN: **sorry for the long wait. It's been forever, I know. Also, Teaching Patience [my Avatar fic] is in process as we speak, so the chapter should be up within a month if not a few weeks. Yup. So.

Chyea. This is fun.

I think I like these little random AN's.

Except of course when they're in the middle of the chapter [because that's really distracting and annoying].

So yeah.

Review!!


	3. Feline Fable

AN: It's been... idk. I'm not sure how long it's been, only that I'm sure the readers of Teaching Patience are about ready to strangle me. I'm gonna work on that next, I swear... this one just called out to me to be written. And so it is.

There is A LOT going on in this chapter, so do try to pay attention to the _details_. As for Kakeru... anyone (like me) who has only seen the anime will probably not know just who he is. I would suggest a quick wiki search, but it's really not necessary to know what's going on.

Also: thank Terra for kicking my butt into gear, and giving me LOADS of lovely plot-bunnies. Even if said plot-bunnies are rabid and possibly H1N1-carrying. Boy are they beautiful...

_**Enjoy!**_

* * *

When the alarm clock began its usual obnoxious _beep beep_'ing at exactly 6:15 the next morning, Kyo still hadn't come back. Or more accurately (as Yuki had, of course, gone to bed at a respectable hour and not tossed and turned on his bed, scowling towards the empty sleeping bag on the floor and firmly-shut window), wasn't there any longer, if he had actually come back at all. Personally, Yuki didn't get the guy. What was the point of finding a place to stay the night if you were going to spend it out in the rain regardless?

The arm not trapped under his stomach beat at the offending noise, and after several near-misses finally scored a direct enough hit to the snooze button. Silence.

Shigure's alarm blared from down the hall.

He nearly tripped over the Kyo's sleeping bag when he hobbled blearily towards his closet for a clean uniform. Five fresh and folded pants and jacket sets hung on the rack courtesy of Tohru. The spotless bathroom he entered to take his shower was also courtesy of Tohru. As was the neatly-stacked pile of warm and fluffy towels that awaited him afterward.

Unfortunately, the note – pink sticky note, flower doodles, loopy writing – left on the kitchen counter was also from her.

"_YUKIII!_" Shigure called down from upstairs, "IS IT REALLY SIX-THIRTY?!"

"WHAT_–"_ he started to call back, before coughing several times as the cold morning air infiltrated his lungs. "WHAT MAKES YOU THINK IT WOULDN'T BE?"

Shigure didn't respond, but then Yuki didn't really expect him to. The older man made a habit out of staying up to ridiculous hours in the morning (doing god-knows-what in his study) and did a pretty good zombie impression upon waking. Yuki usually wasn't much of a morning person either, but at least he managed seven hours on a good night.

As for breakfast... He dug through the pantry for something edible that even_ he_ couldn't screw up. Powedered pancake mix... Scones that were half-moldy... A stale box of Chex-mix had been stuffed behind a teetering pile of packaged ramen noodles. The box joined a carton of milk on the counter. He figured it'd take Shigure at least a few minutes to realize that it wasn't corn flakes.

Feeling less like he was allowing his poor uncle to starve, he finally sat down at the table. While he checked over a page of logarithms from last night's homework, Shigure came in and sat down across from him. Yuki had to stop him from trying to eat the morning paper.

"_Coffee_," Shigure whimpered out by way of greeting. It typically took about three cups before the older man was ready to join the living.

Yuki glanced over to the pot, but it looked suspiciously empty even from his seat at the table. Still, he got up and physically checked to appease his hung-over-looking uncle. "Pot's empty." _Thunk_, as Uncle's head met the counter. "I'll make some more. Just... eat your breakfast."

"You're an angel, surely. Sent down from heaven just for _meee_..." Funny. That's not quite what Yuki was thinking about the other man...

The older man blindly reached out around the edge of the island he was sitting at, grasping at the silverware drawer on the other side. Yuki shook his head at his uncle's antics, letting the fourth scoop of coffee mix join its brothers in the ancient maker. The machine kicked on with a violent _whirr_. Behind him, Shigure was trying to find a matching pair of spoons by feel alone, or at least two non-plastic ones.

"Did you ask Tohru or Kyo if they wanted breakfast?" He gave up and dumped the last two spoons on the counter, both of which were completely different styles.

Yuki joined his uncle at the island, shaking his head. "Tohru had work this morning and won't be back until right before we have to leave for school," guesturing at the pink note, "and I don't know where Kyo is. He went out last night. Hasn't come back." The _'hopefully he won't,'_ he muttered only to himself.

Shigure stuffed a large spoon of Chex-made-cereal down his throat. "It's been raining all night. Wonder where he went..." (It came out more like, "Iph bim waynin aww nyf," but Yuki had lived with the man long enough to understand him even at his worst.) _Swallow._ "We should probably buy more cereal too. This one's a bit stale."

Yuki ignored the milk and spoon, instead popping a handful of Chex-mix into his mouth dry, propping his chin up on his hand. It was _still_ raining, although it seemed to have died down quite a bit from the hailstorm against their roof the night before. The sky outside the small window over the sink was still dark out like a black and murky mud-puddle, cloudy reflections of smog and the corruption of the city. Winter weather as dreary as the poetry Ms. Stewart, his English teacher, clung to like a lover.

He had an essay due today... He glanced at the cheap dollar-store analog clock (which had been purchased and tacked up next to the standard metal one after the metal clock's batteries had died; no one could figure out how to reset the time once they had been replaced).

Just on time – encroaching on the border of need-to-leave and about-to-be-late – the front door opened and shut in rapid procession, Tohru flying in nearly as fast as her apologies. Yuki tuned out Shigure's remark about missing her cooking and stuffed his schoolwork back into his bag. The formerly-pristing math problems crinkled like tin foil in between his history book and calculator. He cringed.

He shouldered his bag and stood, cutting into the others' conversation with the finesse of a politician. "I'm going to go grab my jacket. Get changed and I'll meet you by the door in five?"

Tohru nodded ("Hai!") and bounded up the stairs before him, pigtail ribbons flying behind her like an airliner's smokestream. It seemed fitting that even a janitorial job for a hotel wasn't draining enough to curb the girl's enthusiasm. She insisted that she needed the job ("school costs loads of money, Sohma-san!"), but he figured she hadn't caught on to why the school bills were no longer coming in under her name. The checks she sent in had been rerouted to a bank account in her name since the day she joined the Sohma household.

He could tell her and give her the free time off, but he knew she'd be opposed to the idea. She was just that way.

Lifting the handle up while he pulled the door open (it tended to catch otherwise), he frowned. The window was halfway open, the curtain on the opened side damp about the edges from the rain being blown in. It gave a satisfying _click_ when it shut. He was tempted to lock it as well, but he figured that Kyo would want to be able to get back in if he decided to come back, seeing as Shigure was nearly as paranoid about his front door being locked as he was about his computer passwords (albeit for different, more perverted reasons).

His jacket was resting across the head of the bed where he had left it. Uniform shoes partially tucked under the bed out of the way. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he wormed his feet into the ugly black loafers, too lazy to bother untying the laces. _They were leather. Leather stretched, right? _When he pulled his jacket off of its comfortable position atop his pillows, it knocked the stack over and onto the floor.

"I should probably wash my sheets anyway..." something metallic caught his eye. "What the?"

Sitting delicately on the bed where the pillow had sat previously was a shiny gold coin.

* * *

"Is it an American coin, do you think?"

Yuki flipped the heavy piece of metal over in his hand. It was roughly the size of a Sacajawea coin and just as shiny (the only time he had ever seen them were on infomercials advertising the commemerative editions), but lacked the golden face that typically gave the coin its name. Or rather, it lacked any distinctive face or feature all together. Small etchings looped around the perimeter of the coin on both sides, but they were illegible – as though done by an amatuer hand with a powertool. Still, under the unnatural orange glow of the streetlamps, the faded scribbles didn't look like any English he had ever seen.

"No... at least not one that's still in circulation. Although, it doesn't _look_ like an old coin..." He shoved down the desire to continue caressing the coin and dropped it in his pocket, forcing the gloved hand to join its partner clasping the umbrella over his head. Given the freezing temperature and the ominously gray pre-dawn sky overhead, it wouldn't be long until they had snow. For now they were stuck with the icy sleet of a weather still too warm for snowballs and snowmen. "I'll have Professor Vilhen take a look at it before math – if anyone would know what it is, it'd be him."

Tohru nodded softly behind her thick scarf. "Vilhen-sensei is a very smart man." She pronounced Vilhen like _villain_ – an apt name if any, although the man himself would beg to differ. He seemed to think himself the school's silently appointed guardian of the fragile teenage mind. One time he had forced a student to construct a ten-page essay on the 'perils of dating' because she kissed her boyfriend goodbye on the cheek before entering her classroom. And it wasn't even _his_ classroom. However, he was just bursting with (mostly useless) facts about culture and strangely enough, eighteenth-century detective fiction. Yuki imagined he'd be a lot better liked if he'd cease treating his students as the enlistees to his drill sergent, but he wasn't about to be the one to address the issue with the punishment-happy man.

He listened distractedly as Tohru stammered about some project the teacher had supposedly assigned to his Monday and/or Wednesday class the day before. It wasn't that he didn't find what she had to say interesting. He _always_ found the girl interesting. It'd just be a bit easier to pay attention when your nose and ears didn't feel like they were about to fall off. Not for the first time he regret not grabbing a scarf as well.

Maybe a pair of earmuffs, too.

Besides, the orange-tinted glow of the streetlamps caught her blue eyes in their net, and the resulting greenish hue was enough to derail his thoughts long enough to miss the majority of the conversation.

Cute, kind, and not the slightest bit interested in him. In fact, she never seemed _interested_ in any of the boys that flocked about her like baby ducklings – _can I carry your books, Tohru? Can we carry you to your class, Tohru? Can we throw a parade in your honor??_

She had always seemed naively oblivious to their attentions, but sometimes he wondered if maybe she played it off to spare their feelings. Then again, his respect for her didn't drop by that fact. She was too good for any of them.

"Oh Sohma-sempai, what a poor little kitty!"

He shook his head to clear his thoughts, and followed her pointed finger to a nearby garden fence, where said cat eyed them both warily. Perched precariously atop one of the warped boards, it was the dark orange color of the stretched skin of a tomato past fully ripe. Its fur was damp from the rain, the sticking up and matted strands around its shoulders and ears stained as red as its eyes.

Yuki didn't know very many cats to be happy animals, but this one seemed especially sour as though it were imagining death to whoever was foolish enough to leave it out in the rain.

Tohru, the bleeding heart she was, didn't seem to pick up on the animal's hostility. She set her bag down by Yuki's feet, under the safety of his umbrella, and slowly inched closer to the cat, the hand not supporting her umbrella reaching out towards the cat. The stray's hackles raised in suspicion. Personally, Yuki didn't see a positive ending coming from this. Either the cat wouldn't appreciate the girl's attention and swipe at her, or it would be content to let her pet it. Maybe even hold it. _Wet_. There was _no_ feeling worse than wet cat hair clinging to your hands or clothes.

Yuki cringed sympathetically.

A little over a foot away the cat finally made its decision. Ears flicking back and sharp little teeth bared, the cat hissed lowly at her, tail flicking back and forth from where it lay draped over the top of the unevenly cut fence. Tohru gasped and took an unwitting step back, noticing it before Yuki did.

The tail was long – a foot and a half, if not two feet – and the exact length of the fur covering it was indescernable between the rain-damp matting and its aggitation. However, two-thirds of the way down the shaft it split, forking off into two very separate tails. It looked as though it had been in some sort of accident, probably one with some sharp blade, which had sliced it up the shaft and allowed it to heal in two distinct directions. Yuki guessed... an axe, maybe?

Tohru held her hand over her mouth in shock, eyes wide. He shared his thoughts with her, but even as he offered his pity for the poor animal's accident she was shaking her head, wrapping her free arm tight around her and backed up to again stand by his side. Neither pair of eyes left the cat's odd tail.

"Back home, in Japan..." she hesitated, not wanting to insult her new home, "there are stories about spirit cats with tails like that. They did very bad things..."

Yuki didn't want to offend her, so he bit down the urge to smile at another one of her strange stories from her homeland. Having Shigure as an uncle, he understood the effect ghost stories could have on a person. Still, cats with unnatural tails weren't all that uncommon. Maybe it was something to do with the town's close proximity to several factories and railroad tracks, but a good portion of the cats he saw everyday on his walk to and from school had either deformed or missing tails, paws, ears, or otherwise.

With one last hiss in the girl's direction, the cat leapt nimbly off the fence, darting across the rain-slick street, where it was swallowed up in the shadow of the appartments across the street. Yuki set his hand on Tohru's shoulder comfortingly before handing her back her bag.

"We better keep walking. School starts in..." he fumbled one-handedly to check his watch under the double layers of coat and glove, "twenty-five minutes. Don't want to be late."

"Uh, hai!"

The rest of the walk to school was made in nearly complete silence, only broken by their gasps as swirls of icy wind snuck their way into the gaps of all their layers, and the uneven beat of sleet against their umbrellas. As they walked, the black of the sky brightened marginally to a murky brownish-purple. The fog dissipated slightly from its perch among the branches of the trees, still clinging to their last leaves. Reflected orange glow of the streetlamps drowned the puddles accumulating between the old cobblestones.

Despite being the _'good part of town_', East & Main was just as old as the broken-down and disease ridden sector he usually cut through when he wasn't concerned about the safety of the girl beside him. Shigure claimed that its _'old and inherent evilness' _was the reason he lived in a cabin-like house out in the middle of the woods. Personally, Yuki thought it was because city cops frowned upon having a wild and crazy style driving in the middle of busy streets. The man wasn't happy unless he was digging in the dirt one way or another, and the windy trails he had plowed through with his jeep was more than enough to keep him entertained.

Still, with tennants who could afford basic cable and didn't have their electricity shut off every other week, this route was much more appropriate for a seventeen-year-old girl.

It was outside the school, atop one of the tall brick supporting columns of the main gate, that they saw the cat again. The rushing students surging through the iron entrance didn't seem to pay the cat any mind, but both Tohru and Yuki halted midstep towards the gate, causing several students behind them to swear and push around the two stopped at the entrance. Realizing they were causing a scene, Yuki guided Tohru through the gate and around the side, where the cat had turned to watch their procession. Its forked tail curled around its hind legs.

Tohru leaned in slightly, and Yuki resisted reminding her that the cat couldn't understand them anyway. "I think it followed us here... I wonder what it wants."

But the animal had gotten there before they had. Could it be a coincidence? "I don't know. Maybe I was a mouse in my past life, or something."

Tohru laughed nervously, glancing furtively across the emptying courtyard to the school entrance. Where they _should_ have been probably a few minutes ago. Something about the way the cat's eyes locked onto his drew Yuki in though, and he didn't notice she was calling him until she tugged on his coat sleeve gently, glancing up at him through thick lashes.

"Sohma-senpai, the bell rang. We'll be late..."

"Of course," he said. "We don't want to keep them waiting."

As he was ushered through the doorway he glanced back to the cat, just in time to watch it leap down from the wall and out of sight.

* * *

"…of course the only way for Silas to know he was being betrayed was through Gabriel, but it's quite evident in line thirty-three that..."

The teacher's voice, sweet like too much sugar in coffee, floated through his ears, but he paid no attention to the words. Outside the rain had finally stopped (somewhere between discovering that he had read the wrong pages and the realization that with this teacher, it didn't really matter). Though the sky wasn't gaining color quickly, the streetlamps were going out at a rate that would suggest it was. Already, everything beyond the front gate was black, and half the couryard was swallowed up in shadow. Long rectangles of orange-yellow spilled across the front lawn from the lit classrooms.

A shadow moved through the one he was gazing upon.

"Now everyone!" Ms. Cartwright's voice cut through the cloud, "Open your notebooks to a clean page, and compose a poem. I want at least twelve lines, rhyme scheme of your choice. The topic is love – might I suggest, why it's ill-fated because men are _inconsiderate bastards_?"

When Yuki looked back towards the courtyard, the rectangles still stood out as clear as day. No mysterious shadows, nothing out of the ordinary. He forced his eyes away from the window and drew out his notebook along with his classmates. Two rows over, Haru's chin slipped off his palm and landed with a _thunk_ on his desk. He never even stopped snoring.

After three more tear-enforced poetry assignments, the bell rang, waking up those who had decided their time was better spent in dreamland. Yuki let his slim mechanical pencil drop to the paper mid-line, not really knowing what he would've said if given the time to complete it.

At the front of the room (which was really the back, but the young teacher had rearranged all the desks towards the lawn-facing windows to _inspire_ her students. Because of course teenagers found frozen grass _thrilling_...), Ms. Cartwright threw her arm up over her forehead dramatically, like the drama teacher she had always really _wanted_ to be.

"Don't pretend to care about poetry for my sake, students. Not _everyone_ can have the gift of words and beauty that run rampant through the veins of a... an _artist_!" She turned toward the windows herself, leaning a hand against the glass as though to hold up her fragile soul. "How the school board thinks I can teach children who..." The students behind her took the opportunity to sneak out before she could rant any more.

"I can't help but feel kind of bad for her," Yuki admitted to Haru as they rounded the corner towards the junior and senior wings. "Even if she _is_ a bit of a basket case."

Haru nodded. "She cries a lot."

"She's just..." _Dramatic. Loud. Obsessive._ "Underappreciated."

Haru scoffed, stopping at the fork between the two wings. "And she makes sure we know it."

That she did. Yuki waved 'bye' to Haru, who strut down the Junior hallway like he owned it. Then again, the Sohmas – particularily the ones living in the main house – had donated quite a bit of money in the effort for better schools and opportunities for families. Perhaps the idea wasn't so far off.

Yuki shared only one class with Haru: English, which the younger boy had only been enrolled in because of a supposed talent in sticking words together. One that apparently didn't need to be proven in speech, nor assignment. How the boy managed to scrape by with a B was beyond him.

Two of Tohru's fanclub stood guard around another member's locker as the girl entered her combination, engrossed in conversation. Yuki chuckled quietly at their antics, stepping forward to get into his, which was only two lockers down. Neither girl even glanced at him.

"It just seems like... such a coincidence, you know what I mean?"

"Oh, I know," girl number two answered, popping her gum. "And I heard he's a real hottie, too." Yuki groaned mentally, finally getting off the old and rusty lock and setting it on top of the locker shelf for safe-keeping.

Girl number one practically cooed. "Ooh, which one?"

The girl messing with her locker glanced up, pushing back her Tohru-inspired straight bangs. "The teacher, of course. He's a _doctor_, you know." The other two grinned widely at what Yuki could only assume was a good point. "But the new student's quite a looker too. _Very _exotic."

All three girls burst into annoyingly sharp squeals, and he slammed his locker door shut with a bit more force than necessary. They glanced over long enough to give him disaproving look,s before breaking out into excited whispers and flitting off towards whatever classes they had next. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance. He didn't get girls. Probably never would. He was content with that. It was the giggling he couldn't stand.

The hallway was still pretty full and he had the majority of his four minute passing-time left, but he wasn't really in much of a mood to chit-chat. Besides, Tohru had gym this period out in the C building and even if Haru wasn't family, he was still a full year younger, and in a completely different wing.

_He needed more friends..._

He pushed open the orange-painted door to the chemistry classroom, always shut because of the now-retired teacher's obsessive need to keep everything he considered a _'foreign chemical'_ contained inside and away from the student population. He didn't seem too concerned about those who ventured beyond the doors, however. The man had experienced a caffeine-induced panic attack the week before, and until the administration could find a suitable replacement, second period had become a sort of study hall where the only rule was that the students stay inside the classroom. That and no murder. The police generally frowned upon that.

Immediantly he could tell that something was different today, though. The brown-nosing, first-to-their-seats students were all huddled together as close as the desks would allow in their places in the front, and the classroom was a buzz with whispering. He spotted a member of the student council he knew, Kakeru, along the right hand wall, and sat gracefully in the neighboring seat, letting his bag flop to the floor.

"What's going on?"

"New teacher," the Chinese teen whispered back, nodding his head towards the front of the room. "Nobody knows what to make of him yet."

Yuki followed the nod to the previously-abandoned desk, where a tall dark-haired man sat hunched over a thick book, bangs completely covering his left eye. The man glanced up, the light from his reading lamp reflected in the one visible green eye, and Yuki started.

"He looks all serious-like," Kakeru continued, and Yuki leaned in closer to encourage the exciteable teen to speak more quietly. "Like a serial killer or something. Something for the School Defense Force to look into, huh? Gonna' help out this time, what'dya say?"

More students trickled into the classroom. "I doubt he's a serial killer," Yuki reasoned exhasperatedly. "Live in reality, please."

"But he's got the 'I'm-gonna-kill-you-slowly' stare, and just look at the mafia briefcase next to the desk!"

Yuki blinked. "What? Mafia briefcase...?"

"Yeah! Like, the ones drug dealers use to sell their dope, then shoot the guy and throw him cement-footed off the docks!" Kakeru was not hampered by what most would call 'logical thinking'. The only briefcases Yuki could recall seeing were ones held by lawyers. Sometimes a student or two with one collected from their parents' closets in pre-stickered condition could also be seen walking down the halls.

A dark shadow spilled across their desks and even Kakeru was smart enough to shut up. Steely green eyes met Yuki's. "It holds my stethoscope. They're expensive. I don't want it broken." His smooth voice neither sounded amused nor annoyed, but when he stalked back to the front of the room, Yuki was left with the feeling that he had just narrowly escaped the aligator's sharp jaws. Kakeru elbowed him, giving him an '_I-told-you-so_' look that he dutifully ignored.

The bell rang in total silence, and the intimidating man looked out across his students for a few more tense moments with his hands clasped behind his back.

"The teachers at this school aren't fit to teach kindergarten. I am to understand that last week, your chemistry teacher decided that it was appropriate to not only throw three different glass beakers but to leave you all to your own devices as well. I hope you can understand why that's unacceptable." A few girls that had managed to bully the nerds into giving up their front-row-seats looked as though they'd faint if he'd so much as look in their direction. "You can call me Dr. Sohma, and I will be your new chemistry teacher."

Gasps and more whispering erupted, and several students shot searching glances at Yuki, seemingly waiting for him to either admit or deny the man a relative. Kakeru elbowed him again, but he didn't know how to answer the question he knew he would find there. That was the thing with the Sohma family – you never knew just how large it really was.

A daring girl who was sitting directly in front of him stood up, egged on by giggling friends.

"My name's Tanya Harding. Let me know if you have any problems settling in," she said cloyingly, letting her nails rest lightly and purposefully on his forearm. White-tipped acrylic. Expensive.

Dr. Sohma plucked off the hand like lint, before glancing down at the offending limb with distaste. He flicked the large embellished cross ring. "I'm sure that such gawdy jewelry - regardless of it being... somewhat of a cross - is against the dress code. Are you going to remove it or am I going to have to report you?" Get your hand out of my personal space, bitch. Growl.

Before the shocked girl could do much more than gape stupidly, the door flung open, accompanied by a few swears and a hot-headed teen that Yuki was starting to wish had actually been killed by those _gangsters_ in that alley.

"Yeah, I know I'm late. It'd be a hell-of a lot easier to find classrooms if all the doors weren't painted the same fricken..." Kyo let the rest of his rant hang in mid-air, sharp crimson eyes locked on those of the teacher's.

The older man stepped forward, allowing the nervous girl to sit back down, and turned towards the tense teen standing in the doorway. "Kyo, language. I don't want to have to send you to the principal's office on my first day."

"_YOUR_ first day?!" the red-head erupted, before seeming to notice where he was, and let his fists fall to clench uselessly at his sides. "Figures you'd be stuck working here..."

Something in the air seemed to sizzle, and Dr. Sohma's eyes went cold, although his voice never left its normal monotone. "Class has _started_. Sit or I'll remove you."

Kyo didn't seem happy about it (when did he _ever_?) but he found a seat somewhere behind Yuki, who hadn't been able to take his eyes off of the altercation between a supposed relative and someone simply claiming to be one. _What was going on here?_

For the rest of class, while Dr. Sohma dictated about the proper sequence of elements, Yuki could feel Kyo's glare the whole time.

* * *

AN: Aaaaand... it's done. Awesome.

As always, I can't guarantee that the next chapter will be out soon, but hopefully it'll be just as lovely.

Thanks for reading, and...

REVIEW


	4. Suspicious Salutations

AN:

I've been flip-flopping lately between Advocating Aesop and Teaching Patience [my Avatar fic, b/c I'm a dork], and because I am getting absolutely NO work done on either individually, I'm just going to say "screw it" and work on them both. Hurray for me. .

Also: Note that there had been some teacher issues last chapter, and do try to keep up. Ms. Stevens is... _not_ actually an OC, so don't strangle me, ok?

The chapter that could also be called, _Every New Section Starts with Dialogue_.

* * *

"Over here, Sohma!"

The slightly overweight brunette male caught the pass between his great bear paws before letting it bounce off the ground on his way down the court. An unfortunately averaged-sized defender at the opponent's end cringed as the other male's bulk crashed into his own like a wrecking ball. His teammates hissed in sympathy.

But the point was scored, and that was all that really mattered.

Yuki trotted away from the bursting mass of testosterone, and towards the awkwardly-low water fountain installed on the inside of the gym's wall. A group of girls congregated along the edge of the bleachers just off to his side.

As he bent down to get a drink, he could've sworn he heard one of them say his name. He paused his drinking, not moving from the awkward position as he listened for it again. Nothing. Just inane chatter about _Kyo_.

He just didn't get it. Kyo was loud. Horribly rude. Hell, he had come into the classroom with curses on his tongue, and yet people were fascinated by him. Girls seemed to _adore_ him.

His hair wasn't even a normal color.

He frowned and stood, wiping stray droplets away from his mouth with the sleeve of his uniform. Maybe _that_ was what had everyone's attention. The boy wore blood red-colored contacts (even to _school_!) and had almost as unnaturally colored hair as Haru. Added on top of that was his personality, which Yuki could tell (even after only knowing him for two days) was brash and untamed. Yuki couldn't fathom how this kid – whom he had only met and "saved" last night – was already messing up his life so royally.

To be fair, he could acknowlege to himself that the main reason he was so frustrated was because people accepted Kyo. Immediantly. While Yuki had never exactly been the social pariah or anything, he could count his friends on one hand and those he could really trust with less than half. The bell marking the end of Chemistry hadn't even finished ringing before Kyo was surrounded by curious students, girls asking if he had a girlfriend.

(_To which Yuki overheard, was a "Hell no, and get out of my face." None of the girls had appeared the least bit daunted._)

"You still playin', Sohma?" Big-and-Tall choked the basketball between his elbow and side, and the redness in his cheeks suggested that he wasn't pleased he had to wait for the mauve-haired teen to get re-hydrated. Yuki just waved him off, telling them to enjoy themselves even as they redivided up the teams before he had given them an answer.

He didn't let himself be too bothered. Basketball wasn't really his sport, anyway.

He spotted Ms. Stevens sitting with her legs crossed before her against the gym doors, upside-down physics book propped up on her knee while she flicked through the pages with a frown. Yuki slid down the door next to her, watching boredly as the male population of the English class turned Basketball into a full-contact sport.

"Afraid of getting flattened?" Ms. Stevens leaned the book back some, enough to turn one of the much smaller pages on the book hidden behind the physics text. He caught a few words that painted a rather dirty picture with a quick skim, and jerked his now rather pink face back towards the other students. "Or are you more afraid of having a good time?"

He looked back up as she took a gulp out of the coffee cup he hadn't seen by her other side. The liquid smelled strange. "Basketball isn't really my sport," he told her honestly. "I'm more of a—"

"Book person, right?" She smirked over the top of her mug, blonde bangs falling from behind her ear to hang over one eye.

Yuki sighed, letting out a puff of air. "Right." It wasn't particularily true, but it was just easier to let people believe what they wanted to believe.

But Ms. Stevens apparently wasn't done, because she tapped her thin lips twice with her fingernail, in thought. "Maybe something graceful too – soccer? No... You would need something where you wouldn't have to rely on people." He wasn't sure whether to be affronted by her abrupt judgement of him, or amazed at how accurate it was. She smiled, tucking back those golden strands. "Martial arts, that's it."

"I, uh..." _quit when I was a little kid because I wanted immediate gratification?_ "I took Karate some years back, yes. How could you tell?"

"You hold yourself differently than most kids your age. More confident, even though you aren't very confident. You've got self-esteem issues, you know that?"

He sputtered. The no-nonsense way she had said it hadn't sounded _insulting_, per se... but rather an observation made by a woman with far too much time on her hands to analyze her students. "I don't have_ self-esteem issues_," he argued, disgruntled. "I just keep to myself sometimes." She nodded sagely, drowning whatever wisdom could have come from that statement with the last of her smelly coffee. Finally he remembered why it smelled so familiar; Shigure had come home stumbling and smelling of it far too often to count over the last year. "Have you been dousing your coffee with gin, Ms. Stevens?"

Ms. Stevens grinned, shutting both books, uncaring about the odd creases the trashy romance novel was creating in the borrowed physics text. "You're a smart one, Sohma. Catch on fast." She gave one last longing look into the bottom of the empty coffee cup before setting it down atop the awkwardly piled books. "And call me Uo when we're outside of class. 'Ms. Stevens' makes me feel like some kind of old fart."

She couldn't have been more than twenty-five, and had the legs of a model. Besides, "We're still in class, ma'am."

Uo Stevens blinked, glancing out at the basketball game to the girls re-applying their makeup on the bleachers. "Then why are we all in the gym? Oh... Right."

Five minutes into History, the woman had declared Napoleon a "crusty midget," slammed the book down on the desk of a rather frightened student and announced that they were all going to get some fresh air. Which had apparently translated to "head to the indoor gym to goof off for a whole hour." Given the gin though, Yuki was surprised she had even remembered.

"Napoleon... did seem like a crusty midget though." Ms. Stevens smiled down at him, and he felt his mission accomplished.

"You know, you're a good kid, Sohma," she said, patting him on the head in a way that came off more endearing than annoying. "Damn smart too."

Yuki resisted the urge to grin wildly at the complement – it always felt good to have some recognition every once in a while – and calmly replied, "Call me Yuki when we're outside of class. Or inside. There's too many Sohmas here as it is."

Ms. Stevens laughed, a surprisingly cheerful sound that lit up her dark eyes in a way that made him wonder why she was drinking in the first place. She stretched out her long legs before standing, holding out a hand for him to take as he got up. The bell rang and the students wandered out, knowing better than to expect a shouted assignment on one of their teacher's "off days." Why bother assign something you didn't want to correct? "That, you're right. So I hear we've got a new Sohma in the school this year, huh?"

At the mention of Kyo, Yuki bristled, wiping nonexistent dirt from his uniform pants with a scowl. "He's a jackass who everyone likes for some reason. He's staying with me right now too, which doesn't help things." The two walked back towards the main body of the school, keeping to the overhanging walls as the sky poured rain from the grey clouds.

"Living with you? Don't expect favoritism just because of that, then. I heard from my last period that he's quite the tough teacher."

Yuki frowned. _Kyo was a..._ "Teacher? Oh! No, I was talking about the new student, Kyo? Although I suppose the Chem teacher's a new Sohma too..."

"Orangey, right?" He laughed at hearing it put so blatantly, but nodded. "He's actually supposed to be in this class right now. Guess he decided to skip. Don't blame him. I'd skip too if I were still a student."

"Your class isn't that bad. Maybe the subject material, but I'd imagine there's only so much you could do to make World History exciting."

They entered back through the back doors of the high school. Only a few students milled around, delaying going to their next class. The clock above the doors read 12:49, and Yuki waved goodbye to the unique Ms. Stevens before walk-cum-sprinting down the emptying halls to Physics. He pushed open the (only) black metal door before taking his seat in the left-middle of the class – close enough to hear perfectly well, far away enough to not be called a teacher's pet. He got enough taunts from his grades alone.

The bell rang and the classroom was still devoid a teacher.

Moments later the door sprung open again, and the pale teacher's dress blended in perfectly with the painted door. Ms. Hana scowled down at the girls of the Tohru Fan Club in the back, and Yuki would bet his grade that she only took the teaching job to scare the makeup off cheerleaders. She strode over to her behemouth of a desk and touched a finger to the electrostatic generator there long enough for her long black locks to flare out around her, then dropped into the hard wooden chair behind it.

"Today we'll be learning about electric waves and pulses. I'll also have to give you a quick lesson on a certain French war, as Uo told me a lot of you played in the gym instead." Her voice was in its usual monotone, but the residual bursts of static electricity kept long strands of her hair floating ominously around her head like a gothic Medusa. A girl in the back whimpered.

* * *

"Haru, I'm sorry, but could you find your own way home today? I seemed to have forgotten my history book in my locker, and I'd like to read up on what we _should _have learned in class." Ms. Hana had done her best to give a fair and accurate depiction, but as with her personality, she couldn't help but leave out key details and then went into a disturbing monologue about the kind of perils soldiers faced in the war. What was worse – she had insisted that some poor boy in the front was the reincarnated soul of one who died a particularily gruesome death.

She would've made a great drama teacher, had she not been so obsessed with her electric waves.

Haru nodded blankly and started walking without him (in the wrong direction no less), and after Yuki played the dutiful cousin and pointed the directionally challenged teen in the right direction, he turned back towards the emptying school building. His shoe sunk into the mud up over the toes, and he scowled.

Damn rain. Even when the sky's no longer crying, the ground still does its best to torture you.

He located his locker in its usual spot – drama wing, second floor – and he mentally apologized to the janitor as his mud-stained shoes left watery brown footprints on the dusty linoleum floor. _On second thought, maybe the floors needed cleaning anyway_. The history book was wedged in between the English book and the math book that he hadn't bothered to remove, seeing as Mr. Vilhen taught mostly through vaguely-connected lectures and powerpoint slides anyways. When he went to pull it out, though, something small and shiny fell out with it.

It was the golden coin he had found under his pillow that morning.

Come to think of it, he hadn't gotten around to asking Mr. Vilhen about its origins. He didn't even remember taking it out of his pocket. Frowning, he slipped a finger into his pants pocket, and sure enough, it was empty. Either he was losing what could be vital bits of his memory, or someone was stealing things from him. Things that were in his pocket.

His pocket that was in his _pants_...

Okay, so maybe he just forgot.

The book slid into his backpack easily, and he picked up the coin to slip it back into his pocket. He'd worry about his sudden onset of memory loss later – if he didn't get home on time, Shigure would be liable to order curry _again_. As much as he loved Tohru's food, she deserved to have a life with her friends without having to be home at any given hour to cook a special meal just for him. He could provide for his little family, dammit.

Hopefully they wouldn't mind if dinner was a little crispy around the edges.

As he was heading back towards the entrance of the school building, he passed the door to Dr. Sohma's classroom, which had been left ajar. Even though he had only met the man that day (despite being related, apparently), the no-nonsense doctor didn't seem the type to leave his classroom unlocked without him safeguarding it, much less open.

He paused just beyond the doorway when he heard harsh whispering going on within. Yuki positioned himself so his body was not easily visible through the crack, lest the room's occupants decide to look his way, and peered in through the one-inch space between door and jamb.

The room was swathed in the pale gray of the overcast skies outside the lab's windows. Being on the second floor, the rain-muted browning petals of the cherry trees brushed against the bottom half of the window, leaving trails of smeared raindrops and sticky pieces of autumn in its wake. Several of the desks were pushed back from the front of the room – fallen and jumbled forms lying dead behind the feet of one of the occupants. The teen was standing tense as an aggitated cat, fingers stressed like claws at his side. Hair caught the pale light and shone like fire.

His enemy leaned back, half sitting on the teacher's desk, looking completely relaxed in juxtaposition with the younger man. Only the annoyed crossing of his arms gave away any sort of anger the man held, for his eyes were hidden behind the glaring reflection of his glasses.

The man guestured at the empty room before him with a sweeping arc of his arm. "Do you honestly believe I'm here by choice? We're all pawns. You know that."

"I ain't no fucking _pawn_!" Kyo hissed. "I do whatever I fucking want. And don't you feed me those lies – he's never let you out of his sight. Why would he start _now_?"

Dr. Sohma sneered down at the redhead, and from Yuki's vantage point he could see that the look didn't quite reach his eyes. "Did it ever occur to you that he wouldn't just _let_ you run away?"

From his coat pocket, Yuki's cell phone beeped once, and both of the room's occupants froze, jerking their heads towards the door. He managed to lean back just quick enough to not be seen, but by the sound of the even footsteps, one of them was coming to check out the noise. Yuki backpedeled, nearly tripping over his own feet as he darted near-soundlessly through the open door of the classroom next door and peeked through the slight opening he had left behind.

Dr. Sohma looked up and down the hallway, eyes darting by Yuki's without seeing him, and Yuki let himself relax just slightly. _The doctor hadn't seen him_. He didn't know why it was so imperative that he hadn't, but it was a relief regardless.

The man sure could give a good glare.

Kyo stepped out of the door behind the doctor, giving the hall a cursory sweep that seemed to last just a moment longer on Yuki's door than the rest, but he thankfully didn't point out his hiding spot. "It was probably just someone's watch that they left behind. Don't worry about it." Dr. Sohma nodded tensely, eyes still staring transfixed down the blackness of the unlit hallway. "Besides, as much as I just _loved_ having this conversation with you, it's about time I head back anyway. About to rain and all..."

The taller man finally glanced back down at Kyo, his face expressionless, although his eyes shone with what could be humor. "Of course _you_ would know that—"

Kyo shoved him, but had the beginings of a grin. "Oh, shuddup, Hatori."

Dr. Sohma returned back to his room, and by the sounds of metal scraping against linoleum, was returning the desks to their pre-Kyo position. Kyo sauntered off down the hallway into the blackness, and Yuki finally allowed himself to breathe, gathering up his things before heading home himself.

* * *

"I'm home!"

"Ah, Yuki. Had a good day at school?"

Yuki toed off his shoes inside the door, lining them up next to both Shigure's and Tohru's – an action the girl had insisted on, both as tradition from her home country and in keeping the floors clean. His damp backpack was dropped inside the doorway as well. He'd drag it up to his room later.

"It wasn't too awful. We have a new teacher in chemistry, though." He wandered into the kitchen, where Shigure sat with his laptop opened before him. Tohru called down a greeting from upstairs where she was cleaning – the beep from his phone earlier had been a text from her, asking if he had had any laundry that needed washing – and he yelled one up back as well. "Hey, do we have a doctor in the family?"

Shigure finally looked up from his Word document (the beginings of another smut scene for his newest novel), seeming genuinely surprised. "Doctor... Oh! Do you mean Hatori?" That was what Kyo had called him... He nodded. "'Tori and I go _way_ back." This was not reassuring. Shigure knew inmates from 'way back'. A couple of lawyers. Once he knew a man from 'way back' that chased them half a block down the street, screaming about some debt he owed him (turns out Shigure knew one of the responding policemen from 'way back' as well).

"He's a little weird, and I never really got him, but he's family... somehow." Again, the monstrosity that was Sohma relationships struck them with confusion. "So the stoic man's teaching now? I never pegged him as the type."

Yuki couldn't help but agree. "I know. He spent most of the lesson going on about how we were all idiots, then looked frustrated when we couldn't immediantly grasp onto what he was teaching."

Tohru came down into the kitchen to put away some of the cleaning supplies. The old man made some embarrasingly lecherous comment that she blushed to, and Yuki slapped him upside the head with a half-hearted retort about what the man _should_ be focusing on – his novel that his poor editor was expecting done by the month's end – when the phone rang. Shigure got up quickly, both to avoid another slap and to answer the phone.

Now that he was alone with her, Yuki took the time to check out the girl's outfit undetected. He wasn't sure if it was normal for girls in Japan to wear skirts or dresses while cleaning, but todays little ensemble was a petite blue skirt and light blue top that hugged her waist in all the right places. Something about seeing her in such a cute outfit made him feel extremely protective, which bothered him.

He wasn't her boyfriend, so he really had no right to feel that way.

"Is Kyo not home, too?"

The thought of the other teen – who he hadn't seen since the overheard conversation between him and the new teacher-slash-relative – made his chest tighten and heat to flare across his arms as his fists clenched. There was just something _off_ about the boy, and even if he prided himself on his manners and control, Yuki hated a mystery he couldn't unravel.

Which was probably why he couldn't stand the guy.

He just barely managed to disguise the distain in his voice. "No, I'm afraid not. I haven't seen him since school; I wonder where he could've gone off to..." With any luck, this 'Hatori' would've done his job and brought Kyo back to wherever he had run away from.

Tohur accepted his response easily and took a pot out of the drawer with a smile. "Hopefully he comes home before dinner. What sounds good, Sohma-kun?" After discussing dinner options with the girl for a few minutes ("Anything you'd like, Miss Honda." "Um, but it's your choice, please!"), he left the kitchen to let the girl work in peace. He retrieved his backpack from the hallway and passed Shigure on his way towards the stairs, still chatting amiably with whoever had called.

It was only in his room that he finally let all the tension flow from his body, flopping bonelessly onto his bed with a great, shuddering exhale. Sometimes it felt like he was almost an entirely different person at school; he had never been the kind of person to freely say what he was thinking or even speak up in class, except for answering questions when called on. With a calmer frame of mind, he could sort his earlier jealousy of Kyo into the category of _things I wish I could do_, and attempt to rationalize it to himself.

And that was the beauty of _home_.

Here he never felt the urge to act any certain way other than how he truly felt. Well, he did find himself censoring his words more around Tohru, but that was to be expected – she _was_ a rather innocent-minded and pure girl. He wasn't about to let anything his dirty uncle say taint her, let alone something _he himself_ could say if caught off guard. Still, being home was like stepping into a barricaded fortress, a private garden where those who truly mattered would accept him for who he was.

_A private garden that the weed called Kyo had planted its poisonous roots into..._

Yuki rolled over onto his front, intending to suffocate himself in his pillows to relieve the stress, when something hard bit into the skin of his upper thigh. "_Ah!_ What the...?" With some manuevering and flopping about, he managed to wiggle a few fingers into his pants pocket, fishing out the coin he had found that morning. It looked visibly duller in shine than it had earlier. Maybe the inside of his pocket was dirty?

"_Mrowww._"

He glanced up, neck cricking at the sharp angle, from the coin held awkwardly before his face, to his window. The weird orange cat from earlier was pawing at the glass, luminescent crimson eyes staring unblinkingly into Yuki's own purplish-gray ones. It didn't look pleased to be out in the rain, if the flattened ears and sharply flicking tail – no, _tails?_ – were anything to go by.

"Sorry, cat," he told it, immediantly reddening when he realized he was talking to an _animal_, of all things. That didn't stop him from continuing, though. "You're wet and I don't want to hear the bitching Shigure would give me for letting you get your sticky wet fur stuck to his 'clean carpets.'"

As though in comprehension, the cat blinked once, turned around fluidly, and leapt off the roof and out of view from Yuki's partially face-down position on the bed. Yuki resolved to put strange, scarily-smart animals out of his mind, and get started on the homework that wouldn't be due until the end of the week.

* * *

"Shigure...? What's that cat doing on the chair?"

The man in question looked away from the news and glanced over to the chair as though he hadn't expected to see it curled rather comfortably in its fluffy depths. "Yuki! Did you honestly expect me to leave poor little Fluffernutter out in the rain all night? What's wrong with you..."

"_Fluffernutter_? You named some random street-cat after a _sandwich_?" _No_. He refused to let Shigure do this again. The man could get out of anything by distraction... "I thought you had a very firm 'no pets' rule. What happened to that?"

He couldn't help but notice that the cat didn't look fazed in the slightest by its apparent new owners' argument going over its head. In fact, it looked to be watching the news, intent on the newscastor's words. _"Once again, the network would like to extend it's apologies for the blatant disregard for clothing seen tonight_..._"_

Newspeople... At least he now knew why Shigure had been watching the news in the first place.

Yuki shook his head, tuning back in to Shigure, who was waving his arms wildly in the air. "And _then_," he continued with a flail of the arms that made him look like a gradeschooler, "it meowed the _cutest_ little meow and looked up at me with those big ol' eyes... How could I _possibly_ deny it, Yuki, tell me?!"

There was no debating with him. Yuki didn't know why he had even tried.

"Sohma-san, do you think you could—" Tohru froze at the entryway, staring at the cat with wide eyes. For its part, the cat looked up lazily at her entrance, tails flicking absently against its curled up legs. "Ano... nevermind. I can do it!"

She darted back out, and Shigure gave Yuki a look that read, 'no idea what that was about.' The cat went back to its casual observance of the news figures, and Shigure grinned suddenly, rounding on him with an almost feral gleam in his eyes. "Aya was sad that you and Kyo never came to visit him after school. I think he's planning revenge, just so you know."

Yuki cringed. In normal conversation, revenge could mean a tack on your chair. Maybe something wet and squishy in your shoe. With Ayame, it was pink and flowery cosplay dresses – and lots of them.

"Speaking of which, where is Kyo?"

"I don't have a clue," he replied honestly, wandering over to sit on the arm of the chair that the cat was occupying. It glared up at him as its cushion tilted. "He seems to just come and go as he pleases. Hopefully he found someone else's bed to hijack." Yuki reached out to pet the cat's soft-looking head, and snapped his hand back when the cat tried to bite him.

Shigure laughed. "It doesn't look like Grimmalkin likes you. Maybe you shouldn't speak so ill of others."

"Grimmalkin? I thought it was _Fluffernutter_?" Yuki scrunched up his nose in distaste. "What kind of name is Grimmalkin, anyway?"

"I was just joking around earlier, Yuki, lighten up. And I don't know. It was the name of Nostradamus' cat though, although I think it's supposed to be gray..."

The cat just kept scowling.

* * *

AN: done!

Okay. Seriously, everyone needs to give a round-of-applause to Terra for kicking my ass with this one. Without her, the grammar would be horrible (you should've seen all the inheritly evil red she uses to point out my errors), and it probably would've taken three times as long to type up. She's a savior in the category of motivation.

Also: she didn't edit this section, which is probably why it looks like it was typed up by a middle-schooler. Yay for Kyokichii's awful grammar skillzz!


	5. Moonlit Myth

AN: Okay! Another chapter done, and another author's note not edited by Terra (so don't blame her for my horrible grammar). Despite Teaching Patience's (my Avatar fic) larger fanbase, this fic is always _sooo_ much more fun to write. Things are starting to happen now, and – like a snowball rolling downhill – it's only going to get more chaotic as it goes.

Enjoy!

* * *

_Yuki sprinted fullout, dashing through the ghost-like birch trees as the other sprinting figure ahead gained more and more ground. The rain fell like a dark and hazy mist, and the sky was the muted brown-black of smoggy industrial blocks. His shoes slid as he tried to find purchase in the mud..._

_Still the dark form barreled on, unimpeded by the branches that grabbed at Yuki's clothes like ghouls in a storybook._

_He saw the figure through a break in the trees for one time-stopping second before it was gone, the wisps of dark muddy brown and the crunch of leaves and sticks under heavy feet the only proof the monster wasn't something out of a child's nightmare. It had been huge._

_It had been horrifying._

_Distantly, Yuki recognized his surroundings as the forest surrounding the Sohma estate. The ghost trees thinned out and the crashing stopped; he slowed down as well, breathing heavily behind the cover of a small grove as the creature let out a mournful wail. That smell, like rotting flesh and stagnant water, curled around the trees and he muffled a cough into his torn sleeve, blinking back tears that mixed with the pouring rain._

_A hollow tapping echoed across the clearing._

_He readied himself to step out from behind the trees. It was time to face his fears – face the monster._

_Tap tap_

_One last gulp of putrid air, heart pounding like a drum in his chest._

_Tap tap_

_Around the peeling white bark came a sound like a growl. Low, rumbling, and ominous as thunder._

_Tap tap_

_He looked, finally. Eyes like freshly spilled blood, two tails—_

"Fucking Christ, are you going to open the window or what?!"

Yuki blinked and the dream faded like smoke, wisping away even as he sat up to dutifully open the window for his errant roomate. Kyo leapt up onto the sill from the roof outside as nimbly as a cat and stretched like one once he was nout of the cold, lithe muscles flexing and relaxing in a rippling wave down his spine. Yuki had a feeling that if Kyo had the necessary anatomy, he would've purred in contentment.

As it were, the red-headed teen curled up cross-legged at the end of his bed, staring unblinkingly at the still-exhausted owner of the room. Just as Yuki was about to ask what he wanted (and if the answer was "nothing," then the response would be "let me get back to sleep because some people actually want to show up to class"), Kyo frowned, staring resolutely across the room while nervous fingers picked at Yuki's bedspread.

"I get that you don't want me here, but I wouldn't be stealing your bedroom if I had much of a choice, you know."

_Was that... an apology?_

Yuki propped up his pillow to give his back some leniency as he leaned against the headboard, resigning himself to a long and most likely irritating conversation. Sleep had sounded so good, too... "You always have a choice." _(__Now I'm quoting chee__z__s__y movie lines?_) "I just don't understand why you had to tell my uncle that you were _related_ to us. I mean, what happens when he finds out that you _aren't_?"

Kyo shot him a wry grin. "Who says I'm not? Okay," he amended, seeing Yuki's unconvinced face," so I'm not related by blood. Who is? As far as anyone can tell, none of the Sohmas are _really_ related. It's that fucking name rule."

_Name rule... How did...?_ "How do you know so much about us? I mean, the name rule isn't exactly public knowledge."

"You could say that I'm close to the family. I know the bastard Head personally."

"Oh..."

The other boy leaned back onto his palms, arching his neck to gaze blankly at the ceiling. Fiery strands fell about his face and framed his wide crimson eyes. He still hadn't taken out the contacts. Yuki couldn't find it in himself to mind. "Come onto the roof with me."

Yuki started, tearing his eyes away from the sharp contours of the collarbone visible through the V of Kyo's shirt, and met serious eyes. He had to ask Kyo to repeat the question before it could permeate through his sleep-addled mind. "It's..." A glance at the clock evoked a groan, "two-thirty in the morning. Go to _sleep_. Can't we do this in the morning?"

Kyo grinned, white canines catching the soft glow of moonlight. "The stars aren't out in the _morning_, dipshit. C'mon. Quit being lazy." He crossed the room to Yuki's closet before he was finished with his yawn and tossed the grumbling boy a sweatshirt, which was put on obediently. Then he slid the window open again, smirking when Yuki scowled at the cold.

Halfway out the window Yuki regained most of his faculties, turning to Kyo who was already pulling himself up onto the roof. "_Lazy_? I've gotten maybe three hours of sleep. What's so exciting about the stars, anyway?"

"They're far away," the redhead replied exasperatedly. Kyo extended an arm down to him, which he put more weight on than necessary to get onto the roof out of pure passive-aggressive spite. It didn't seem to hinder Kyo though, and soon they were sprawled out on their backs on the cold and dew-damp tile of the roof, their breath glistening in cold puffs around their faces. If he weren't so annoyed at being woken, Yuki would've admitted that Shigure's roof provided a perfect view of the constellations. Whirls of blue and purple sparkled with millions of tiny fireflies. He pulled his sweatshirt around his waist a little tighter. They'd probably be up here for a while.

A thin arm danced about across his periphrial vision; a soft voice whispered the names of the stars reverantly. Was this what Kyo had been off doing last night? The smaller teen turned to curl on his side, eyes glowing blood-red through the shadows as he caught Yuki's.

"Do you ever wish you could just run away?" He asked, uncharacteristically soft, and Yuki wondered if he were confiding something to him. He himself had felt that way at first, when his mom had died and he had been shipped off to live with Shigure, but he only nodded slowly. "People are fucked up and their rules are fucked up. Sometimes I just need to get away, and... No one really looks _up_, you know?"

Yuki nodded again, crossing his arms behind his head as a makeshift pillow. His own personal hiding place was in plain sight – if you act like you're not particularly interested in anything, people won't be particularly interested in you. Kyo turned back to the sky and both boys gazed up at the Milky Way , tracing barely visible patterns that faded into the blackness almost before they could grasp them with their eyes.

A glimpse of those oddly colored eyes had brought back a question though, that tingling in the back of his mind like a fly on the back of his hand. He tried to observe the other boy without turning his head. Kyo exhaled loudly. "Don't pull that _polite_ shit with me. If you've got a question, ask it. No sense wasting both our time."

"Oh. Um... You're different. Than anyone at our school, I mean." Kyo's knee bounced up and down impatiently – that wasn't the question and he knew it. "_Why_? Do you like people's attention? Not that that's a bad thing, just... Aren't there easier ways to get it than with orange hair and red contacts?"

Kyo closed his eyes and grinned, like he had been expecting it. He probably had. "I haven't dyed my hair – _yes_, the orange is natural," he insisted, tugging on a wayward tuft contemplatively. "And I don't wear contacts. _Almost_ everything about me is natural, which is more than I can say for most of the other students at your school. People just seem to find me interesting." He let out a small noise in the back of his throat, like a snort, a darkness passing over his expression as he fingered his black and white-beaded bracelet. "Most people want to make a _pet_ of me."

Yuki briefly felt like he was a small child missing the details of some complicated story, but that feeling was whisked away with a sudden and intense antagonism. Not wearing contacts? _Prove it_.

"Now, _you_ I don't understand," Kyo huffed and propped himself up on an elbow over him, the moonlight casting an orange halo through the soft and fluffy strands. He forgot that he was supposed to be skeptical about the validity of Kyo's _natural_ness, if there was such a thing. "You don't have any friends and don't want anything to do with people, but I can tell you're not happy. What gives?"

"I–" He swallowed thickly around the cold night air. The heavens above twinkled as though laughing at him, and he snorted at the thought of a cognizant solar system. Kyo glanced over at him in amusement. He blamed it all on the hour. "I don't... _not_ like people. They're fine. I guess I'm just shy. I mean, I don't have any problems talking to someone once I know them, but it's the introductions that get me."

He didn't mention the nauseating feeling akin to seasickness or the thickness of his tongue when he knew he'd have to make a first impression. Kyo just nodded like he understood.

Yuki doubted that he did.

"But hey, wait," he sat up, letting his zip-up hang loose around his waist. It wasn't analyze Yuki hour, and he for one didn't appreciate the scrutiny. "We were talking about you. You and your..." he waved his hand at Kyo, who cocked an eyebrow in amusement. "And anyway, what's the deal with you and your family? You're not a Sohma, really." He had a hard time even thinking back to two days ago, when he had interrupted the horrifying beating between Kyo and his much larger brothers. Kyo had said he "wasn't a Larkson anymore," so Yuki had assumed that he once had been... Could he have been mistaken?

Kyo glanced out towards the woods, emotion bleeding away from his mouth and eyes. For what felt like the first time, Yuki was allowed to see a honest emotion.

Or at least, he presumed it was honest.

The moon pooled shadows across the tops of trees only visible from their perch above. It was like they were in a black-and-white photograph, the contrast of the dark trees only made apparent by the pale gray moonlight dripping over their evergreen boughs. Yuki waited for a moment for a reply, gazing at the few stars that twinkled close to the moon that outshone them. Just as Yuki was about to give up, Kyo heaved a small sigh, eyes still boring holes into an indeterminate tree several meters away.

"They... They didn't mean any more to me than a roof over my head and food occasionally," he whispered into the silence of the night. "We weren't related. Hell, they found me and took me home like you did, except for more selfish reasons. By the time they figured out I brought them more trouble than they had expected, I was already stuck with them. Idiots. All they had to do was tell me to go and I would've... Fuck, people are so stupid."

Yuki lay beside him, silently listening to the worked-up – and maybe slightly hurt – tone of his voice as his breathing sped up slightly, wanting to do something comforting but also not wanting him to stop. He wouldn't have known what to say anyway.

"I ran away from home – or at least the closest thing I could call one – a long time ago. I've kind of been a..." he glared at his white-washed knuckles as he searched his memory for the right word, "...a transient for a while. They weren't the first family I've lived with. I've... Now you're stuck with me, and if you really don't want me here, just say something. I won't care, I promise."

To say that a large part of him didn't want the irritating redhead out of his home would be a lie. It had been just that afternoon – yesterday, actually, given the outrageously early hour (also Kyo's fault) – that he had vented to his personal favorite teacher about Kyo's disruptance to his life. For the first time since he had moved in several years ago, he had to share a room with someone. He had to share his home. Share his family...

_With someone who was hardly around long enough to make a difference._

He beat down the snide voice in the back of his mind with a vengeance. The other teen was brash, rude and obnoxious. He'd cursed around (and at!) Tohru, which was a sin in itself. And he'd invited himself into Yuki's home after only knowing him for five minutes...

Yuki wasn't perfect. He understood and embraced that fact with the alacrity of one being thrown a ready-made excuse for all their faults. He was shy? No matter, he's not perfect. Judgemental; the same. Even with his 3.9 total GPA for all of high school (not perfect, if only because of P.E., which could hardly be considered a class anyway), he could acknowledge his faults much more readily than most of his classmates, for he focused on them. There was the sarcastic tendency towards cold and callous remarks, which he had been putting a lot of effort into correcting with Tohru as his role model. His shyness, which was unlikely to dissapate any time soon.

And, as was becoming more apparent, his immediate judgements of people based on first impressions.

The redheaded teen really hadn't done anything criminal, rudeness being his only offense. To be fair, the kid had only followed him home with the intention of waiting out the storm, but once Shigure had weeded out the (okay, mostly fabricated) story, he had been invited to stay with them for an indefinite amount of time. Which had probably been his intention all along...

Yuki shook his head to dislodge the sudden unruly thought. Of course it had to be now that he had finally decided to give the kid a second chance that his innerself had decided to join his side after all this time trying to convince him that he wasn't so bad. What had happened to that, huh?

He realized that he had been silent for a long time, and Kyo was looking more jittery by the second. He took in a breath to reply, but Kyo interrupted him with a burst of indignant anger. "You know what? Fine. Sorry I'm such a nuisance! If you can't do it yourself, have your uncle tell me to get lost..." He moved to leap off the roof again, but Yuki caught his wrist above his beads and he froze.

"I never said I wanted you gone." A long, heaving sigh and he let Kyo's thin wrist fall from his fingers. Kyo stayed standing where he was, a foot from the edge of the roof and gazing down into the shadowy yard below. "I just... It'll take a little getting used to, I guess. Sit, you're making me nervous."

The air shifted. He heard the rustling of cloth, and suddenly he was slightly warmer where Kyo's leg brushed against his knee, but he kept his eyes purposefully fixed on the green halo misting around the moon while Kyo got himself back under control. He may have only known the teen for a few days, but the boy was feral and instinct made him give him his space. Only once the rustling stopped did he look back; Kyo had his knees to his chest, an arm slung over them. The warmth of his T-shirt-covered back taunted his own, and he felt himself leaning into it despite himself.

For reasons he wouldn't have been able to put into words, he sensed that Kyo's past was taboo, and so he centered his thoughts on lighter topics. "What made you switch to my school?"

"You were in it," he snorted, as if it were obvious.

"No, I mean... What about your old school?"

"What about it?"

Yuki gave up the distance fight, letting his back rest against Kyo's own. The redhead either didn't notice or didn't mind because he didn't make any movements at the sudden contact. "Didn't you have friends or anything that you're giving up?"

Kyo was quiet for a moment, before he replied. "I've never gone to school before yesterday. Never had any reason to."

"What teenager doesn't go to school?!" Yuki turned to stare at Kyo, who for his part blinked and looked disgruntled at the loss of his warm backrest. "Isn't it a law or something? And what about your future – how do you propose to get a good job without an education?"

"I don't know," he said defensively, eyebrows knitting in the center, "I've just never gone! Master never wanted me to leave the grounds, and I'll never do anything that requires an education, so I've never fought the issue."

An image of what could possibly have been a choppy memory appeared in his mind - lines of bright-faced children in white outfits punching on command... "Master? Like in Karate or something?"

Kyo nodded wearily but turned away again, toes scraping at the asphalt of the roof shingles. "Something like that... What do you get out of it?"

"Good grades that'll hopefully get me into a good college. I don't really mind the learning aspect either, though, or the people there." Yuki snorted, leaning back against him again. "Contrary to whatever you believe about me disliking them."

"Just shy. Got it." The redhead leaned back as well until their hair tangled together and Yuki could feel the length of his spine pressed up against his own. "What if... What if you wouldn't have to make that first impression? Imagine you just go to school and everyone already knows who you are. Would you like that?"

Yuki laughed. "So magically I'm famous? Okay... Yeah, that'd be nice. But in that dream world I wouldn't have to sit for exams either, got it?"

"Duh. Who likes tests?" Kyo let out a laugh as well; a low and throaty sound that was as unusual as it was pleasing to hear. Below them, the water heater clicked on and they fell into a comfortable silence listening to it. As the low rumbling faded into the general sounds of the night, Kyo asked, "Hey, who was that girl yesterday – the one who did the cooking? She your sister?"

_Tohru in her school uniform, Tohru in her teasingly short house-outfit, Tohru in a bathing suit..._ The thought of her in any indecent way made him feel like a dirty old man – and more than a little sacrilegious – but they were _definitely_ not siblings. "No, Tohru's..." He struggled not to let the revulsion show in his voice. "She's a classmate of mine. We found her living in a tent on the edge of Sohma property and now she's staying with us in exchange for some household chores. Shigure _insisted_."

"Shigure seems to _insist_ on a lot of things, eh?" They shared a quiet chuckle at the reason Kyo was with him as well.

"She's just so... perfect. I have to act differently around her because I don't want to offend her, and she's..." _Adorable. Sweet. So beautiful I don't want to stop talking to her._ "...distracting. She refuses to stand up for herself. Some times..."

"You just want to shake her. Sounds frustrating."

Yuki opened his mouth to correct him – Tohru was anything but frustrating – but Kyo was already getting to his feet, and suddenly Yuki found himself fighting back a yawn. Might as well let it go. If the kid was going to live with them, he'd see for himself how amazing Tohru really was. He took the offered hand and descended to the lower roof as well, back through the window into his agreeably warm room. Kyo returned from the hallway with an armful of blankets before Yuki realized the redhead had left, dumping them on the floor by the bed in a heap. The teen maneuvered through the mess and all but a few tufts of orange hair disappeared under the blankets.

"Goodnight."

Kyo let out a growl that could've been either a returning wish or a "shut up."

Yuki liked to think that they had shared a moment.

* * *

The sun was shining warmly behind his eyelids as he woke slowly, blissfully stretching out tense muscles in a wide yawn. His hand brushed something small and cold under his pillow. Another coin. Yuki didn't let the mystery consume him this time and reached up blindly to set the gold piece on his windowsill. If he felt oddly rested after his impromptu stargazing last night, he didn't let that faze him either.

At least, not until he rolled over and blearily opened his eyes to his alarm clock.

No green glow of 6:25. In fact, no glow appeared at all and a quick check proved that the clock wasn't even _plugged in_. Reality hit sharply.

"_Shit_!"

A mad dash for his cell phone proved that he had already missed a good portion of first period class. was going to _murder_ him... He tripped over Kyo's abandoned bed-slash-nest of blankets on his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth, cursing the redhead all the while. No one else had been in his room last night. He certainly hadn't sabotaged his _own_ sleep schedule, at least. The mess left sprawled across his bedroom floor only spurned him farther.

_And to think last night we were connecting..._

Shigure wandered out of the kitchen as he stood hunched over by the front door, wrestling with the disobedient tongue of his uniform shoe. "Yuki, what are you doing home? Kyo said you left earlier..."

_Of course he did._ "Kyo's a liar. Can you hand me that?"

"Sure." Shigure tossed him his back pack, which he slung over one shoulder as he continued tugging on his shoe. "Aren't you going to be late?"

Yuki paused with the laces, leveling his uncle with a glare. "I'm already late, and it's because Kyo _unplugged_ my alarm clock. And _**no**_!" He blurted out before Shigure could vocalize the glint in his eye. "I don't want a ride to school. It's much _safer_ walking, even if I'm even more late."

"Oh how you wound me so, Yuki!"

When he had finally ended up on school grounds, he had already missed half of his first class, and briefly considered waiting out the remaining time outside in the unusually – for the season – bright weather, but decided that showing up late was better than not at all. Or at least, he hoped Uo saw it that way. The woman was tempermental at best, so it was best to try to appease her.

The hallway was empty as he walk-cum-sprinted down it, dashing by the newly-posted flyers for Student Government that he normally would've been interested in if (_Kyo wasn't such an asshole_) he had had more time. Something about the leadership position sounded like something he would've liked to do, supposing he had gotten the balls to sign his name up in the first place. Still, it'd be interesting to see who was chosen to help speak for the students.

Given that it was a vote, probably a jock or a cheerleader. Like Tohru, if she had actually been interested.

_Click_

Every eye looked up from their books when he shut the door, as quietly as he could, despite knowing it was futile. History was in no way a student's favorite class, and it didn't take much to distract them. Uotani Stevens finished typing out her text message before bothering to look up as well. Yuki prepared to be mauled.

"So Sohma finally decides to join us, I see." Yuki did his best to look chastised. A pile of quiz-esque papers sat in a messy stack on the corner of her desk, and the format didn't look familiar. His stomach sank. "You missed a pop quiz. Congrats. But... you must've been busy this morning, right?" He very nearly shook his head, but caught himself at the last moment. "Quick quiz: when was the war of 1812?"

"Uh... 1812?"

"Smart kid. Screw it, let's just give you a 100 and call it even. Take your seat."

A few of the girls giggled and a boy he passed on the way to his desk stuck out his hand for a fist-bump, which he returned awkwardly, more than a little bit on-edge. People never fist-bumped him... Across the room, Kyo's eyes were downcast, fingering the beads on his bracelet as he avoided his gaze. It seemed at least that the other teen felt somewhat guilty about unplugging his alarm this morning – even if it _had_ mysteriously gotten him out of a pop quiz that he probably hadn't been ready for. The class had been studying the U.S.'s interactions with France and not Britain, after all.

Yuki didn't have a chance to corner Kyo until after class, but even then it would seem that the Gods hated him; the redheaded teen slipped into the crowd like a ghost. You would think that having florescent orange hair in a school filled with black, blonde and brown would make you stand out. Evidentally that wasn't the case.

He followed the crowd to the Cafeteria (it was really just the spare gym that several custodians had dragged a few dozen folding tables into, but was called so both because of school regulations and the fact that "gym" brought to mind dodgeball and sweaty overweight boys. No one wanted to eat with that image in mind.), where he split off from the stampede. A convenient (not to mention crooked) table sat off to the side and he wandered over to it.

Haru continued grazing on his salad.

"Hey, Haru. How was first?"

The dichromatic boy finished chewing the carrot and set down his fork slowly. When he spoke, his voice was rough and he didn't look up at him. "You didn't even tell me."

_What...?_ Yuki set down his backpack gently but didn't sit down, nerves tense. "What didn't I tell you?" A flash of orange caught the edge of his vision – Kyo walking in front of one of the candidate posters. Dozens covered ever wall he had passed by earlier. They were all done in bright primary colors, sparkly and in girly, curled bold writing said—

"That you were planning to run. I mean, I don't care. I'm not jealous. Just thought you would've thought to tell me, is all."

All the voices, all the people talking and walking and laughing around him, blurred together like ice cream flavors swirled in a blender. Blood suddenly rushed to his head, and if it weren't for table he probably would've fallen down. Someone – Haru probably – was shaking his shoulder, asking... something. Probably checking to make sure he was okay.

Acually, knowing Haru, he was probably just annoyed that Yuki was ignoring him.

Crimsom eyes cut through the fog his mind was in, and he stumbled back to his feet. _Kyo had something to do with this._ The thought pulsed like a drum beat in his veins, and he shook off the arm Haru flung out to steady him. _This was Kyo's fault..._

"Yuki, are you alright?"

He glanced away from those staring eyes long enough to notice the girl – one of Tohru's fanclub – that had apparently grabbed his wrist. Her baby-faced expression showed worry and concern, but the glint in her jade eyes suggested possession. "You poor thing! So hardworking, not even eating lunch... Sit with us, we have cakes!"

Kyo's eyes disappeared like one of those optical illusions he had always hated as a child ("C'mon, Yuki! It's not going to pop out or anything." "Shut up, Shigure...") as he was led to a seat at the center of the table. Girls cooed on either side. A cupcake and seven different types of candies appeared before his eyes as they bickered over what he should eat first.

He supposed he could let Kyo go for now...

* * *

"Okay," Yuki panted, leaning against the door he had just hauled the other through, "what's with you signing me up as a candidate?"

Kyo shrugged from his perch atop the empty desk, seemingly apathetic even as lithe muscles visibly tensed under his long-sleeve uniform shirt. "You said you wanted people to know you. Now they do."

"I didn't mean like _this..._" Yuki groaned, striding over to the desk beside Kyo's and leaned against it with his legs crossed at the ankles. Out in the hall the bell rang, signifying the end of lunch. He ignored it; he would've had more time for this conversation if Tohru's fan club hadn't spontaneously decided that he was suddenly worth their time (which was _also_ Kyo's fault, seeing as he had apparently commissioned them to make his posters). They had been awfully sweet though, and he hadn't particularily minded when the quiet blonde had offered him one of her egg rolls. "And what about my alarm clock?"

"What about it?"

He scowled. He was willing to overlook the candidacy – he _was_ making loads of new friends now – but the late wake-up was a little more annoying and less well-intentioned. "Don't go in circles, idiot. Why did you unplug it?"

Kyo bristled. "Don't call me an idiot! And sorry for trying to apologize for keeping you up to look at the stars, _jeez_." The two fell into an awkward silence at the mention of their strange little bonding session. Thin fingers picked at the hem of his loose-fitting uniform slacks. "You got to skip out on the quiz, too. _No exams_, remember?"

Yuki _did_ remember. But the comment had been in jest – surely the kid wasn't going to go out of his way to ensure that he missed _every_ test, was he? "You couldn't have possibly known that, though. You just wanted me to oversleep. I don't appreciate that."

"Fine." Kyo tilted his head in a '_whatever you__ think'_ kind of way that Yuki found very unfitting of his brash character. "But you'll probably be able to skip out on more classes once you're president, though, right?"

"Supposing I win, which I doubt," Yuki replied caustically. "It's a vote, so you know that my chances aren't good."

"It's a vote, sure. But you have to have a high enough GPA to be eligible. Only one person besides you qualifies. I'd say your chances aren't too horrible."

Yuki's considering gaze jerked up to the other's smug smile, and he was reminded forceably of a large wild cat cornering its prey. _How does he know all this?_ Kyo hadn't been in his room that morning, and he was starting to wonder whether the other teen had gone to sleep at all. He opened his mouth to retort... only to realize he really didn't have anything honest he could say. Signing him up without his permission was annoying, but was obviously done with kind intentions. And, despite his protest about the accuracy of Kyo's claims, the extra sleep had been relaxing _and_ hadn't effected his score on the pop-quiz. Another arguable misdeed swept under the rug.

He wondered how many more he'd be overlooking with Kyo as his new roommate.

"Look," Kyo placated, peering up at him from beneath golden eyelashes in a way that would have had most of his female classmates swooning, "you just enjoy your newfound popularity – I'll handle your election campaign, okay?" He unfolded his legs from atop the desk and stepped off with a slink to his shoulders that seemed distinctly feline. The metallic click of the door swinging open sounded surreal and far too _average_ to come from Kyo's hand on the knob. Kyo didn't bother to glance back at him, but paused in the doorway.

"I'm only here to help you, you know. Don't look so surprised."

Yuki's voice caught up with him only after Kyo was out of sight. "_But I've got my __**own**__ ideas for the can__d__idacy!_"

Kyo's rough laughter echoed down the hallway, but whether it was at Yuki's supposed _ideas_ or at the dejection in his voice, he could only guess.

* * *

There was just something about sunny days.

The glare – reflected off the freshly cleaned glass windows of the (_New and Improved!_) Taylor's Taxes – caught blue-green eyes, and she brushed back a flyaway strand of hair. In her other hand hung a plastic grocery bag, which held a little surprise for her boys.

Men _did_ typically like a little variety in their life.

She had been making traditional Japanese food a lot lately, and even she wouldn't have minded a switch in cuisine. When she had passed by the little family-owned grocers on her way home from school (the long way because Yuki always got so worried whenever she would walk through the woods in an effort to save time, and she didn't want to make him worry), she had felt the unusual warmth of the sun. An air conditioner was running inside the store.

The rest, as they say, was history.

Thin drops of perspiration accumulated on the girl's forehead, which she wiped away cheerfully. The grocery store hadn't been her only spontaneous action today, and she knew she had the rare sunshine to thank for that as well.

Kyo had exited his shared bedroom that morning as she was about to knock on the door, and had greeted her with a friendly – if a bit tight – smile. He had informed her dutifully that Yuki had gotten up earlier than normal and had something important he had to do at school (post up hundreds of candidate posters, if the hallways were anything to go by. She was so proud of him for finally striving for something he believed in), and that it would do her well to have a little personal time as well. _Take a walk in the park, maybe?_ She hadn't had much time to herself lately.

The sun had been just as beautiful this morning, as well.

Tohru turned the corner on Smith and Barnes, waving to old widow Hallowell who sat alone on a wicker chair on her porch all day. The old lady waved back, gumming a smile back at the girl. That was another good thing about the long way home – it allowed her extra time with friendly faces.

_"Mroooow_."

She glanced down the narrow alleyway between a Mongolian grill and a nail salon nervously. Other than a few trashcans leaning against an algae-encrusted dumpster, it was empty, and she stopped for a moment to press her hands overe her heart as it raced beneath her breast. _It was just a cat._

Just a normal cat.

No one else was afraid of cats – regardless of how many tails they mysteriously had – and she berated herself for even mentioning her homeland's superstition; now it was all she could think about. It didn't help that the very embodiment, to her at least, of Japan's Nekomata had been taken in by the Sohma family either. So many strays... Sohma-san was starting to form a collection, it would seem.

The cat's meow echoed again from somewhere behind the dumpster, and despite her fears, Tohru set her bag down and stepped closer to the alleyway. Closer, something sounded wrong. Through the distortion of the metal and the echoing of the bricks, the creature sounded pained. A strange lilting quality hung in the air in between calls as they grew rougher, like a small sound warbling out from the depths of a much larger body.

Tohru crouched just around the corner of the dumpster, not wanting to scare the poor cat if it was already hurt. Garbage cans blocked her vision of the street, and it was suddenly much cooler in the shadow of the city. She brushed away the goosebumps prickling up along her arms.

This poor thing needed her help. She could worry about her own fears later.

"H–Here, Kitty Kitty..."

Something rumbled, like the belly of the beast, and unconsciously she brought her arms closer to her body for protection. A large brown claw slunk out from the shadow, and she fell backwards to escape from this thing that definitely wasn't a cat.

She saw the crimson eyes and suddenly, she knew...

But the claws were upon her before she could even scream.

* * *

DONE! :D

And wait until you read the next chapter before you murder me for Tohru, okay?


	6. Fish Tale

AN:  
There are no suitable excuses.  
I have tons, don't get me wrong.  
However, none are worthy, and I apologize.

(It wouldn't have felt right writing Ayame without cross-dressing involved. I'm sorry T^T)

* * *

"I'm home!"

A loud crash like metal falling on tile sounded from the kitchen, followed by Shigure's "Ah, Yuki! A little help here...?" Yuki set his bag down by the front door and toed off his shoes, nodding for Kyo to do the same. The boy scowled but did so anyway, revealing bare feet beneath the standard school shoes. Somehow, Yuki wasn't surprised.

He was, however, surprised to find Shigure desperately trying to hold back the rest of the pots and pans from joining their fallen brothers on the kitchen floor. That drawer had always given him difficulties, and only Tohru seemed to be able to access it without creating a huge mess.

_We should probably organize it some time..._

Yuki opened up the fridge, largely ignoring Shigure's plight. "What are you doing, Shigure? You and I both know that you can't cook." Kyo reached in past his arm for the milk, hopping up on the counter to take a chug straight from the carton. Yuki ignored him – he didn't care for milk much himself (and the expiration date had passed a few days ago, besides).

"What a cruel nephew I have, not even helping his poor old uncle... We're _family_, Yuki!" The man's leg twitched from all the weight he was putting on it – the pots were held in a high up drawer, and holding them in he needed to stand on one leg to reach – and he looked about ready to cry. Granted, Shigure _always _looked about ready to cry, so this was nothing new. Then, in a last-ditch plea, "Help an old man, Kyo?"

Kyo scowled back at him, before sniffing the contents of the milk jug. "This milk's old. Keep your food fresh, stupid."

"Our sweet flower should be on her way home right about now. I suppose I could call her and tell her that mean-old Kyo wants her to turn around go buy a heavy jug of milk to take home—"

"_Never mind_! Jesus, I'll go get some myself, okay?" The redhead slammed the carton down, and Shigure ducked as drops of creamy liquid sailed through the air.

Yuki sighed as the front door slammed loudly. "Why is he living with us, again?" And for that matter, what happened to the courteous and helpful Kyo that had coerced Shigure's sympathy two days prior? Surely the boy didn't think that he could act like this and still retain a welcome invitation. He took the kitchen towel off its hook and swiped it over the counter, wiping up all the remnants of semi-chunky milk. Yuki gagged. _How had he drunk any of that?_

Shigure watched his pseudo-nephew clean and leaned back against the island, giving up on the pans and allowing the rest of them to fall to the floor. "He has nowhere else to go. I think... he's probably thankful that _we_were the ones to find him. There are a lot of sick and twisted people in this world." And then, whining, "Just to imagine our poor Tohru-dear taken in by some old pervert – it breaks my heart!"

"You _are_an old pervert. Besides, there are places for homeless kids. Send him there."

"But he's _not_ homeless now, he has _us_!"

"He's not your responsibility, Shigure."

His uncle let the purposefully cheerful smile fade, and glanced down at the smooth whirls in the granite below large hands. A small folded piece of paper sat innocently by Shigure's thumb, and Yuki recognized it as the origami cat Kyo had made. "It was many years ago when I was first allowed to leave the Sohma main house. Not many Sohmas ever do, you know. I had only just started to feel comfortable with this extended freedom when I heard that your mother had died and that if no one stepped forward, you would be placed in an orphanage. Kana was a great woman, and your father... I had to do it, for those who loved you more than anything but couldn't be there for you. In taking you in, I placed many more restrictions on myself. You weren't _my responsibility _either, Yuki, but I've never once regretted that decision."

Yuki fought to breathe past the sudden lump of shame in his throat, but before he could apologize, Shigure ruffled his hair gently. "And even though I know that you and Kyo get along about as well as cat and mouse, I can't just abandon him either. I think I might have seen him once before I was allowed to go out on my own, but I didn't like how the head of the family looked at him. I like keeping Kyo here, where I know he isn't getting into any sort of trouble. Anyway," he yawned widely, bearing gleaming teeth in the exaggerated gesture, "Aya should be here any minute for you and Kyo; I wonder what could be taking him?"

"What's that pervert want with us—?"

"Oh, _Shigure_~!" The bane of Yuki's existence rounded the kitchen corner mid-frolic, irate-looking Kyo practically hissing under his arm. "Look who I found on the way here – that amazing red hair and eyes, this is Yuki's Kyon-kyon, right?" Yuki and Kyo loudly vocalized their objections, Kyo going so far as to bite the arm that held his head against the taller male's side. Ayame gasped and released him, a new sort of gleam alighting in his hazel eyes. "And he's a _biter_! You better watch yourself in bed with this one, little brother. Oh just look at them, Gure, they're all flustered!"

The cleaning rag dropped to the ground as Yuki gaped, cheeks burning at the implications. "Watch what you say, you damn fool! Someone might actually believe—" Ayame swept him up in a suffocating hug, arms coiling around his neck like a python. He groaned, and allowed his 'older brother' one short brotherly love moment before kicking his ass. It had been months since he had seen him last. To be honest, he was glad a hug was all the man wanted.

"Kyo, I thought you were going out for milk. Did our cute little kitty drink it all on the way home?"

Yuki peered over Ayame's shoulder at Kyo, who was leaning awkwardly against the arched kitchen doorway. Slim fingers were picking at something dark like dirt under his fingernails. The boy gave up any pretense of politeness, and brought a finger up to his mouth to gnaw on. "I didn't make it half a block before Clingy here swooped me up. Thought I was being kidnapped or something..."

_Oh, you have no idea..._

"Kidnapping? Of course not! My adorable little brother will accompany me of his _own_volition, isn't that right, Yuki-dear?"

"Jump off a cliff."

"You'll go bungee jumping with me, then? The heights are scary but I will _do it for love_!"

"I'll cut your cord."

"A dual suicide! How romantic, like in _Romeo and Juliet_! Oh, I love you, Yuki, but I couldn't possibly participate in Sohma-cest. It seems we'll have to find some other way to profess our brotherly love."

"Sohma...?" gagged Yuki.

Shigure sat the last of the wayward pans atop the others in a precarious stack, a leaning tower of cookware, and grinned at his longtime friend. "You mentioned some new outfits...?"

_Traitor. See if you get anything for Christmas this year, evil geezer. _"That's not necessary. Besides, Kyo and I have homework we need to get to-"

A snort, and Kyo looked back towards Yuki's lone backpack by the front door; he hadn't brought anything with him to school but the clothes on his back and a less than civil attitude. From what Yuki'd gathered, most of the teachers had been intimidated enough not to say anything. He wasn't sure if that lenience would stretch to missing homework assignments, which Kyo was _apparently intent on ignoring_. "I didn't get any. And don't speak for others."

"That settles it," Ayama cheered, clapping his hands together. "Off we go, little brother!"

Yuki couldn't do much more than grab his shoes up in one hand while Ayame goose-stepped him out the front door and towards the gleaming red sports car, Kyo trailing behind with a vaguely amused look that suggested he'd never been the older man's victim before. Obviously. Most people took off running at the first glance of long silver hair. (There was an unfortunate incident at Yuki's tenth birthday party... He hadn't invited anyone else to the house since.)

He put up a good resistance at the car door - the shop wasn't all that far, no reason to waste gas - Ayame hadn't fallen for it. He grasped both sides of the open door with outstretched arms, kicking when Ayame tried to force him inside - a few good jabs under the ribs had him buckling, and Kyo was shoved inside before Yuki could spring back out. Fortunately for the older Sohma, Yuki didn't want to deal with blood in his teeth and stopped trying to bite him after the childproof locks firmly clicked down.

Kyo turned and stared. "Where the hell did _that _come from?"

_Figures that he would choose now to act like a normal human being_. "Ayame's insane, and I really didn't want to have to deal with this right now. It's been a crazy enough day. Give me a little leeway to freak-out at the Devil incarnate."

In the front seat, Ayame made no indication that he had heard them and started the car, peeling away from the driveway at speeds that would put a racecar driver to shame. The occupants in the backseat teetered sideways, before settling in, each looking out their prospective windows. Winter was just around the corner. Already shop windows were beginning to put up advertisements for the holiday season, and the pedestrians outside were swathed in heavier coats and scarves.

Yuki gazed out the window as the building lights flowed past. The cold transparent frame reflected everything back in frosty glowing two-fold, and he allowed himself the moment of relative solitude. Eventually though, he grew weary of the familiar scenery and turned his gaze to the body curled up on the seat next to his. Kyo's feet were tucked up under himself, knees tucked up close to his chest in a way that Yuki knew should be uncomfortable. The boy's face, however, was unusually relaxed, unique crimson eyes gazing sightlessly into the world outside. Fingers tapped out a melody against his thighs.

They arrived at the quaint boutique in hardly any time after shop was situated between a small salon and another clothing shop (this one significantly less disturbing by its distinct lack of Ayame). He had been here many times before and somehow, despite his decrees that he would "_never _come back again," he managed to get dragged here once every couple months.

Leaves crunched under their feet as they followed the flamboyant man through the unassuming front entrance and into the chaos within.

"Oh good, you're back!"

A dark-haired young woman in a maid costume bowed them inside, before gesturing for them to follow her. They side-stepped many piles of lace and other frilly fabrics, and weaved through several tight spaces between racks to the back of the store. Yuki graciously let Kyo walk in front, allowing himself a quick get-away if his pseudo-brother should decide to get too clingy - and he would. He _always _did.

They came to a stop under a spotlight that was affixed to the ceiling before a small dressing room. A small, yet very full, rack stood beside it.

The girl smiled widely behind round glasses. "My name is Mine." She tilted her head up slightly, catching the light and leered at the redhead. "And _you _must be our new model."

Kyo bristled.

_Take that, bastard_.

"I'm not your fricken' doll," he denied hotly, turning his head away from the girl. "Make Yuki do it. _He's _the girly one."

_You can say that all you want. I'm still several inches taller than you..._

Ayame swirled in to the debate, arms aloft. "Ah, but I've already tested out quite a few outfits on my sweet, innocent little brother. Besides, with your short stature and exotic hair, I simply _must _place you in something..." He snapped his fingers a few times in contemplation.

"Red!" Mine popped out from behind the rack, several different colored dresses clutched in her hands. "Or maybe white... Neutral or warm tones would suit him as well."

Kyo looked ready to bolt, so Ayame looped a deceptively strong arm around his waist to keep him in place. The boy's arms flung about, trying to free himself. "Leggo' me!" He hissed, glaring daggers at the man who only continued to smile back. "I ain't wearing your fricken' dresses!"

He couldn't resist. Call him evil, but it was a sadistic pleasure to see someone else (never mind someone so _deserving_) deal with Ayame's insanity for once. Still, he was getting a headache from the screaming. "Most of these are considered lingerie, actually. This _i s_a lingerie shop, after all."

The redhead paled and froze, and in the moment between shock and action, Ayame had wrestled off the boy's shirt and shoes, and flung him into the waiting dressing room. Mine tossed a bundle of red over the plum-colored curtain after him.

"I _said _I'm not-"

Yuki pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned. "Just put on the stupid dress!"

For a moment, everything was silent, then they heard several muttered curses and the tell-tale sound of someone undressing.

Ayame turned to him with a smirk. "You've got your boy whipped, Yuki. I'm impressed." Mine beside him cheered silently, waving her arms about her.

Kyo _usually _wasn't so docile, true - not that anything he did could ever be considered as such. He too wondered what caused the sudden turn-around. "Quit saying such idiotic things. Actually, quit talking at all."

"But Yuki..."

He ignored the older man's whining, and leaned up against the wall, waiting. It didn't take long for the absence of rustling behind the curtain to be noticed. Mine grabbed the edge of the curtain. She pulled to open it, but it moved no more than an inch before Kyo grabbed it from inside, holding it shut.

"Oh Kyo, dear, come out and show us how beautiful you look, won't you?" She cooed, tugging on it again in hopes that he would have let go after the first initial try. No such luck.

Kyo's voice cracked, whether it was out of embarrassment, Yuki could only guess. "H-Hell no, you sadistic bitch! This thing is _too damn short_!"

Yuki chuckled softly to himself. Ayame had always called him his "innocent, sweet little brother," and thus the skirts and dresses _he _had been forced into had always at least been several inches past his knees. Not that that excused the outfit, but it was one concession he was pleased to admit at the moment.

"You might as well come out. They're not going to give up until you do."

"Go to hell!"

Ayame pulled himself together and took a turn in front of the curtain, pulling once on the same side before whipping around and tugging the whole thing back from the other. Kyo, who hadn't been expecting an attack from the other direction, floundered about for a moment before crossing his arms defiantly in front of his chest, determined to not look at any of them.

The outfit he had been forced into wearing was a red and white school uniform. It's red skirt came about halfway down his thighs, which - although slim and lengthy - definitely weren't any girl's. His sleeves ended with red cuffs that, embarrassingly enough, fit perfectly. The red didn't clash as horribly with the red hair as Yuki would have thought, but it still wasn't a good look for the boy by any stretch of the imagination. He still looked... too much like a boy. Or maybe too much like a _girl_? Either way, Ayame and Mine fawned over the boy, teasing him by playfully flipping up the edge of his skirt and sticking clips in his hair.

Personally, Yuki thought Kyo just looked awkward and uncomfortable, which went against everything he knew about the redhead. The other teen was hot-headed and had looked much cuter in his own over-sized long-sleeve shirt.

_Not that he __**looked**_ _cute_, he denied immediately. _Just... cuter. Vulnerable. It's instinctual_.

Now feeling awkward himself, Yuki cleared his throat. "As entertaining as this has been, we should probably get going back. Tohru will be making dinner soon, and food never tastes as good reheated."

"Nonsense," Ayame cried, releasing his hold on Kyo's wrist. Kyo immediately dashed back inside the changing room. "I simply _must_ take the two of you out for dinner. I know of the _best _sushi joint only a couple blocks from here. Kyo, Hun," he called through the curtain, "how do you like fish?"

"Love it," was Kyo's unusually quick response.

"_Fantastic_!" The older man cheered. "My darling little brother isn't picky," he continued, ignoring Yuki's pointed glares. "Go ahead and change back into your boring old normal clothes, and we'll go get something good to eat."

Kyo pushed the curtain back, already changed in miraculous time. His cheeks were still a little red, but already he seemed to be more himself. _No, girl's clothes really don't suit him_. "Already done. Don't expect me to _ever _come back here. You mention this again and I tear your tongue out, housing me or not, got it?"

Yuki nodded, smirking slightly. Whatever made him feel better...

They made an interesting procession down the street, on the way to the sushi restaurant. Mine had wanted to join, but seeing as the only other worker was prancing off, she had to stay behind to watch over the shop should anyone suddenly have a need for perverted outfits. Yuki followed behind his brother (Kyo didn't seem to want to be anywhere _near _the man, and honestly, Yuki didn't trust Kyo not to attack him), and the fuming redhead tailed after them by a few yards. Every so often he would mutter darkly to himself, but he hadn't ran off yet, so Yuki ignored it to the best of his ability. A few elderly pedestrians shot them curious looks. He assumed it was either Ayame or Kyo that had caught their attention, but with both of them having such unusual hair, he wasn't surprised. Every new stare brought forth more grumbles from the boy behind him, though.

The outside of the sushi shop had a huge banner across the front displaying an advertisement for half-off weekdays, in particular their dinner menu. Suddenly things made much more sense.

"Cheapskate," he declared. Ayame made several vehement denials, but both teenagers ignored him and pushed past, deciding that they cared more for eating than how much the man was going to pay to feed them.

Inside was relatively small for a restaurant, and had many tables shoved against the walls with little space between. The walls themselves had several Japanese scrolls hanging on them, ranging from simple kanji that most Americans would know to complex symbols that he couldn't make heads or tails of. Several elderly patrons were gathered around wooden chess-like boards covered in black and white stones. There was an overwhelming scent of seaweed.

"Smells good," Kyo decided, plopping down in a seat in the corner of the room. Immediately he grabbed a pair of chopsticks and separated them with ease, rubbing them together between his palms to rid them of any splinters. Yuki and Ayame seated themselves after him, though neither moved to take a utensil.

"Smells like seaweed," Yuki retorted. He was surprised there wasn't kelp. It wasn't such a bad place, but he wasn't going to admit that to Ayame. He would only assume that meant he could drag him off more often.

Kyo shook his head. "There's the nori, sure. But you can't smell the fish, so it isn't old or cooked. I've had worse."

A waiter in dark slacks and a black printed t-shirt stepped out from the back to come take their order. Ayame went with a couple of appetizers, and he staggered his way through pronouncing a few of the more expensive dish's names just to hear the older man gripe about the price. Kyo rattled off a long string of syllables that sounded vaguely like a car brand, yet the waiter seemed to understand well enough to jot a few numbers down on his little note pad.

"So, what'd you order?"

"Fish."

"Ah."

It didn't take long for their food to arrive, especially considering how many other patrons were in that day. The most expensive items, he decided, were also some of the most unusual, and he chewed on a single piece of meat in the time it took Kyo to devour five or six fatty slabs of tuna.

The redhead tore apart a hunk of salmon with his teeth. "So you two aren't really brothers, right?"

Ayame _appeared _offended, flinging one arm across his eyes while the other swung off to the side. "What is this accusation? We are as close as blood, a lifelong bond!"

Yuki pushed aside a piece of raw eel to get to the pad of rice underneath. "He's old friends with Shigure. He isn't even a Sohma by the name rule, he just tells everyone that. One day he just decided he wanted a younger sibling so I was kidnapped."

"Aww, but _Yuki_," he whined, "you were just so sad and lonely after Kana died. Your heart called out for love and I was the only one who could answer the call! Shigure didn't know the first thing about raising a bouncing baby boy. He probably would have accidentally killed you in the first week!"

"I was eight, not an infant."

The older man ignored his logic. "I remember the many hours spent by your bedside, treating your illnesses and ensuring that you ate well-balanced meals. There were times that I was sure you were going to succumb to a fever or drown in your bathtub, but look at you now. So grown up..."

Kyo blinked. "Is he always this stupid?"

"Pretty much."

"_Yuuuuki!_"

The trio finished up their food shortly and paid with a decent tip - despite Yuki's complaining, the food was good. Ayame counted the bills in his wallet as they stepped out onto the street, before sighing and tucking it back into his long coat pocket.

"When it comes to money, it'd be great to actually be a Sohma," he said. "Your uncle is always so well-off."

"He gets checks sent once a month," Yuki agreed. "He also writes 'romance novels' for extra cash, if you can call them that."

"I happen to love his work, thank you very much."

"You would."

The sun had gone down while they were eating, and it was a great deal colder walking back with only the streetlights to guide them. He would not admit to bumping shoulders with the redhead a lot more often than normal, just to stay warm. Many of the shops had closed down as well. Their reflection wavered in the black store windows. Several crows cawed, observing them from overhead phone lines, but scattered as soon as he looked up at them.

Mine was shivering outside the dark shop when they arrived, and Ayame was quick to take off his coat and wrap it around the freezing girl. She blushed and licked her lips several times while he ushered her back inside and turned the lights back on. Once she was seated and warm he turned to her.

"Mine, dear, why didn't you go home? It's freezing outside!"

She stood up abruptly, coat falling to the floor. "Shigure tried calling your cell, but you didn't pick up, so he called me to see if I could call you or get a hold of you. You still didn't answer so I thought I would wait for you. Your car's still out front."

Ayame took her shoulders in his hands, trying to make sense of her. "What could be so important as to risk your own health just to tell me?"

"The police just found Tohru. She's been attacked!"

* * *

AN: DONE!

*cough* So, yesh. I procrastinate a year and a half... and the wonderful, fantastical, EPIC Terrara tells me she'll write something if I can get down 5k words. I finish it in a day.

I was debating copy/pasting our conversation with regards to one paragraph into here, but that would only grossly stretch out the AN. Suffice to say that there was much key-mashing and frustration, before it was decided to... not do much to it. Anything that makes a particularly large amount of sense in this chapter is credited to her, as 1.5 years of reading nothing but shizaya crack has apparently wilted my brain.

I will never abandon my fics! Just... put them off until I feel like writing them. I'll try to do that much less often in the future.


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